II 



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imitriHmi i It }\\\]\ \u* I ' 

m 



THE LIFE OF 
DONALD G. MITCHELL 



THE LIFE OF 
DONALD G. MITCHELL 

IK MARVEL 



BY 

WALDO H. DUNN 



What is fortune of any kind, whether in the shape of 
genius, or strength, or money, or opportunity, worth, ex- 
cept it be employed in the development of individuality ? 

—D. G. M. in Note-Book. 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1922 



\o 



A 



'^$ 



Copyright, 1922, bv 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 



Printed in the United States of America 



Published April 1922 




MAY -3 1922 
§)C!.A661508 



TO 

MY GOOD FRIENDS 

THE SONS AND THE DAUGHTERS OF EDGEWOOD 
CHILDREN WORTHY OF THEIR PARENTAGE 



But historians cannot dispose of Providence; and even biogra- 
phers are compelled to show a reasonable regard for facts. 

— Fudge Doings, 2 . 75. 



PREFACE 

I finish this biography with a sense of deep satisfac- 
tion. Its completion marks the fulfilment of a hope long 
cherished. I was nearing the end of my second year in col- 
lege when I conceived the notion of writing it, although my 
interest in the subject long antedates that period. A selec- 
tion from Bream Life in McGufFey's Fifth Eclectic Reader 
introduced me to Mr. Mitchell's writings when I was a 
schoolboy not yet ten years of age. Even then I was 
charmed by the sweet flow of the delicate English, and the 
strong current of feeling beneath; and as I read the passage 
over and over, and then read the brief sketch of the author's 
life at the beginning of the selection; of how he was born 
in 1822 — even then an "old man" as I thought, but not 
yet dead; for there was a dash (" — ") after the birth-date — 
I wondered whether I should ever see the man who had 
written so delightfully, and whether I should ever own a 
copy of that book, Dream Life, or any of the others men- 
tioned in the sketch. One after another, Mr. Mitchell's 
writings came into my possession, and I was not content 
until I had read and reread them all, from Fresh Gleanings, 
through the limpid pages of English Lands, Letters, and Kings, 
down to the last volume of American Lands and Letters. 
Still later I came to personal meeting with the author. 

I owe a great debt of gratitude to Mr. Mitchell. His 
writings first interested me in English style. I have often 
said that he taught me more of English than I ever learned 
from my rhetorics. More than any other one influence his 

vii 



PREFACE 

familiar talks on literature aroused my enthusiasm, at an 
early and impressionable age, for the work to which I am 
devoting my life. A desire to live in the vicinity of Edge- 
wood led to my graduation from Yale. On the list of 
January 1903, Mr. Mitchell gave me a photograph of him- 
self, upon which he placed a kindly autograph inscription. 
I said then that it should hang above my study-table as 
an inspiration throughout my undergraduate life. It still 
occupies its accustomed place. Month after month as I 
have wrought on this biography, the sweet and kindly face 
has looked down upon me. The closest study of the man's 
life has only increased my admiration of his character and 
my love of the ideals for which he contended. 

I owe another debt of gratitude to his .family for intrust- 
ing to me the preparation of this biography. Their entire 
confidence in me; the freedom with which they have placed 
every document at my disposal; their desire that I tell the 
story fully and freely in my own way — all these things have 
made the work a delight. Beyond all else, however, I prize 
the friendship which has grown out of our work together. 
Very much of my task was performed in Mr. Mitchell's 
well-loved library during a delightful period of residence 
at Edgewood. I shall retain as among the pleasantest 
memories of life, long evenings of talk in the library with 
Mr. Mitchell's daughters, and rambles over the Wood- 
bridge hills with his sons. Nor shall I forget an August 
journey into the quietudes of Salem with the sons Donald 
G. and Walter L. Mitchell, or memorable conversations 
and readings with Mrs. Susan Mitchell Hoppin, at her ever- 
beautiful "Farm of Edgewood." To thank those who have 
been always helpful would be to name the entire Mitchell 
family. I feel constrained, however, to make special public 

viii 



PREFACE 

acknowledgment of the assistance I have received from 
Miss Harriet Williams Mitchell. The care with which she 
has preserved and arranged the materials relating to her 
father's life has greatly lightened my task. The complete- 
ness of this narrative is due in no small measure to her filial 
devotion and her untiring industry. 

I desire also to thank Mr. Mitchell's friends, and my 
own, for aid and encouragement. To name them all would 
be to extend this preface beyond its due limits. I cannot, 
however, forbear making special acknowledgment to sev- 
eral. I owe thanks to Prof. Henry A. Beers, of Yale Uni- 
versity, who could have written this biography so much 
better than I, for reading a portion of it in manuscript, and 
supplying needed facts. As usual, my good friend and col- 
league, Mr. Walter E. Peck, of the department of English 
in The College of Wooster, has given unsparingly of his time 
to read my manuscript, and to him I am indebted for many 
valuable suggestions. Another friend and colleague, Mr. 
Frederick W. Moore, has kindly read all the proofs. To 
my cousin, Miss Letha M. Jones, I am deeply indebted for 
painstaking work in the New York Public Library upon the 
gathering and verification of bibliographical data. I am 
further indebted to Herbert F. Gunnison, Esq., and to Mr. 
Irving Bacheller, for permission to quote from Mr. Mitch- 
ell's "At Yale Sixty Years Ago"; to the publishers of The 
Youth 's Companion for permission to use the article "Look- 
ing Back at Boyhood"; to Mr. Jacob B. Perkins, of Cleve- 
land, Ohio, a son of Mr. Mitchell's roommate at Yale, and 
to Mrs. Maud M. Merrill, of Stamford, Connecticut, for in- 
teresting letters of Mr. Mitchell; to Sir Robert Stout, chief 
justice of New Zealand, for valuable information; to Mr. 
Henry Charles Taylor, for an expression of opinion; to Alfred 

ix 



PREFACE 

K. Merritt, Esq., registrar of Yale College, and to Mr. An- 
drew Keogh, M.A., Librarian of Yale University, for their 
kindness in supplying information; to Mr. Charles Scribner, 
for the use of letters from the files of Messrs. Charles Scrib- 
ner's Sons; to Mr. Charles J. Dunn, Jr., of South Portland, 
Maine, for the loan of valuable books; and to Messrs. John 
Ashhurst, William F. Clarke, Alvin H. Sanders, John W. 
Plaisted, and Walter S. Green, for bibliographical data. I 
have my daughters Dorothy and Lorna to thank for assis- 
tance in reading proofs and making the index. To none do 
I owe more than to my wife, whose unselfish co-operation 
made this work possible. 

In quoting from Mr. Mitchell's books I have through- 
out this biography referred to the Edgewood edition, pub- 
lished by Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1907. The 
Battle Summer^ The Lorgnette \ and Fudge Doings are not 
included in that edition. All references to these three are 
to the original editions in book form — those of 1850, 1850, 
and 1855, respectively. 

I cannot close without brief reference to the publishers. 
In these days of swift changes in the business world it seems 
to me significant that the present officers of the company 
which issues this biography — Mr. Charles Scribner, presi- 
dent; Mr. Arthur Scribner, treasurer; and Mr. Charles 
Scribner, Jr., secretary — are respectively sons and grand- 
son of the man who more than seventy years ago began pub- 
lishing Mr. Mitchell's works. I am grateful for the care 
which they have bestowed upon the production of this 

volume. 

Waldo H. Dunn. 

Wooster, Ohio, April 12th, 1922. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGB 

I. The Man 1 



THE FORMATIVE YEARS 

II. Ancestry and Early Youth 13 

III. The Yale Days 42 

IV. On the Farm . 74 

V. Europe 86 

THE UNSETTLED YEARS 

VI. Law and Literature 159 

VII. Paris in Revolution, i 848-1 849 183 

VIII. Satirist and Dreamer 208 

IX. An Eventful Twelvemonth 239 

X. Home Fires on European Hearths . . . 260 

THE EDGEWOOD YEARS 

XI. A Home at Last 273 

XII. Outdoor Work 279 

XIII. Civil War Days 286 

xi 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XIV. Literature and Art 298 

XV. The Gospel of Beauty 315 

XVI. Quiet Heroism 323 

XVII. Home Life 334 

XVIII. Friendships 366 

XIX. The Long Twilight 376 

XX. The End 389 

Appendix 393 

Index 411 



xn 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Donald G. Mitchell Frontispiece 

From a portrait painted in 1904 by Katherine Abbot Cox. The signa- 
ture is from a letter to Philip Hart, dated March 13 th, 1904. 

FACING PAGE 

Stephen Mix Mitchell 18 

First Chief Justice of Connecticut. Grandfather of Donald G. Mitchell. 
From a portrait painted in 1827 by S. F. B. Morse. 

Donald G. Mitchell 56 

From a sketch made in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1839. The signa- 
ture is from the letter of May 3d, 1840, to Gen. Williams, printed on 
pp. 59-62. 

Ik Marvel 240 

This is the portrait painted about 185 1 by Charles Loring Elliot, and 
referred to by the Mitchell family as the "Ik Marvel portrait." The 
signature is from a letter of May 3 1st, 1855, a part of which is printed 
on p. 274. 

Mary Frances Pringle 338 

After a daguerreotype taken in 1850. 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 
IK MARVEL 

I 

THE MAN 

Simply to recall him, however, is — I think — to honor him; for 
there is no memory of him however shadowy or vagrant which is 
not grateful to you, to me, and to all the reading world. — (Wash- 
ington Irving Centennial Address), Bound Together, 3. 

It is my good fortune to portray the life of a man who 
touched the world at many points, and always to finer issues. 
For well-nigh three-quarters of a century the names Donald 
G. Mitchell and Ik Marvel have been household words not 
only throughout the English-speaking world but through- 
out many countries of alien tongue. Familiar as people 
have been with the names, affectionately as millions have 
regarded the man, and closely as they have been drawn to 
his spirit, few have known anything of the intimate details 
of his life. For Mr. Mitchell's was a most retiring and sen- 
sitive nature. He discouraged all attempts to exploit his 
personality or his work. He shrank from the thought of 
becoming the subject of biography, wishing, as he once 
said, that a writer might betake himself to "a larger and 
better subject." I am quite sure, however, that those who 
love him, those who have lingered and who still linger over 
the pages of his charming books, those who have been 

1 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

taught by him to feel the beauties of nature with his own 
poignant thrill, will welcome this narrative. I shall at- 
tempt to reveal something of his courageous life; something 
of the secret of his power; something of the means by which 
he influenced his fellow men, achieved fame for himself, and 
earned the lasting gratitude of millions of readers. 

The life of no other American quite parallels that of Mr. 
Mitchell. His interests were many. He was author, edi- 
tor, practical farmer, landscape-gardener, art critic; and in 
all these activities he attained distinction. He is known 
chiefly perhaps as a man of letters; yet he always hesitated 
to call himself a professional author, and stoutly maintained 
that his contribution to the practical and aesthetic phases of 
rural life was his finest achievement. It was characteristic 
of him to consider his practical work at Edgewood as of 
more value than any of his writings. I am reminded, how- 
ever, that so competent an authority as Mr. Henry Charles 
Taylor, of the United States Department of Agriculture, 
pronounces Wet Days at Edgewood to be, so far as he knows, 
the best book on the history of agricultural literature that 
has been written. I hope that I have been reasonably suc- 
cessful in setting forth Mr. Mitchell's contributions to the 
amenities of rural and of home life. 

I do not hesitate to affirm that I myself am primarily 
attracted by the strong, sweet character of Mr. Mitchell. 
He was greatest as a man. He lived a life of singular sim- 
plicity and purity, a life free from ostentation and affecta- 
tion, a life dedicated to the highest ideals. He sought the 
realities of life, and never strained after the possession of its 
shams and vain shows. He had great courage and an invin- 
cible spirit. Although never physically strong, he wrought 
more than the work of a strong man. Never obtrusive, al- 
ii 



THE MAN 

ways modest, free from the false standards which have 
always blighted life, he was a type of the best that is possi- 
ble in the way of living. Without seeking a following, he 
gained one, and has left a deep and abiding impression upon 
the world. He lives in the hearts of the people whose lives 
he touched to nobler living; in the beauty which his words . 
and deeds have incited others to create. 

Mr. Mitchell lived a long life in a period of great intellec- 
tual ferment. He saw almost the whole of the development 
of the greatest period of American literature. It is worth 
while, I think, to remember his chronology. He was con- 
temporary, friend, and successor of Washington Irving. He 
was a member of the committee appointed to provide a per- 
manent memorial to James Fenimore Cooper, and helped to 
arrange a public meeting in the old Metropolitan Hall, New 
York, over which Daniel Webster presided, and before which 
William Cullen Bryant delivered a eulogy on Cooper. Be- 
fore Oliver Wendell Holmes had won fame as the Autocrat 
of the Breakfast-Table, Mr. Mitchell had attained even in- 
ternational prominence. When he published his first book 
in 1 847, Longfellow's Hiawatha was as yet unthought of, and 
Lowell's Biglow Papers were running in the columns of the 
Boston Courier. When Reveries of a Bachelor was published 
in 1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne had just completed his term 
of office in the Salem Custom House, and had ready for pub- 
lication The Scarlet Letter. During the decade from 1837 to 
1847 Emerson had published two volumes of essays and one 
of poems, and was about to issue Representative Men. Poe 
had risen to prominence and was nearing the end of his un- 
happy life. Mr. Mitchell, with a considerable bibliography 
to his credit, became consul at Venice when his successor- 
to-be, William Dean Howells, was but sixteen years old. 

3 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

Moreover, Mr. Mitchell lived to record in literature most of 
the men who had achieved eminence in American letters, 
and who died before 1900. 

As I have said, Mr. Mitchell's name and fame have gone 
far. His authorized publishers have sold well over a million 
copies of his books. There can be little doubt that the sales 
of the more than fifty unauthorized editions have far ex- 
ceeded that. 

The mention of Mr. Mitchell's name — or, rather, the men- 
tion of his pen-name, Ik Marvel — recalls to most people the 
two little volumes which first brought him into prominence 
— Reveries of a Bachelor and Dream Life, These books are, 
indeed, distinctively his own; another could hardly have 
written them. They represent, however, only a small por- 
tion of his literary work, and that not the portion of which 
he thought most. In fact, those who think of Mr. Mitchell 
as a writer only, or chiefly as a literary man, make a grave 
error. He thought of himself first and foremost as a farmer 
and landscape-gardener, and valued most his agricultural 
and rural writings. 

In writing Mr. Mitchell's life, I have not found it neces- 
sary to supply a background of political narrative, to record 
the stirring details of national history during his lifetime, or 
to explain literary movements. For in a certain great sense 
he was detached; he was apart from all such things. Whether 
moving in Washington among the lawmakers in the days of 
the Mexican War, or in Paris during the revolution of 1848, 
he himself is for us always the centre of interest. At all 
times and in all places he was individual; his biography, 
therefore, is the story of himself. Under any form of gov- 
ernment, or in almost any period of modern history, he would 
have been himself. He never, after the Venice consulate, 



THE MAN 

occupied official position; he was never in this sense of the 
term a public man. From his detached position he saw 
with sanity and clearness many things which the public is 
just beginning to see. And it is because he was charmingly — 
even stubbornly — himself that people loved him. The world 
must always reverence and love the man who, living a life 
of purity devoted to the pursuit of high ideals, never allows 
himself to be moved from his principles. Mr. Mitchell had 
his own notions upon all subjects. His religion was his own; 
his methods of work — whether writing or farming — were his 
own; his ways of rearing children were original with him. 
His books are a reflection of his mind and spirit. 

Wherever he happened to be, in cities at home or abroad, 
or tossing on the ocean, always the voices of the country were 
calling him; he was ever dreaming of a cozy home sur- 
rounded by trees and flowers, and made beautiful by the 
simplicities of life. Edgewood was an embodiment of his 
ideal of beauty in process of accomplishment. Beautiful as 
it was and is, it only approximates his ideal. 

His political course was deliberately chosen. He had 
studied problems of government from his youth; in college 
he gave close attention to political theories. He had ob- 
served the practice of politics in Washington at close range, 
and knew at first hand what it required. His impressions 
are well given in his Ik Marvel letters from the capital. He 
was too keen not to see through the shams and the hypocrisy; 
too honest to countenance or to practise them. He knew 
that "the shouting and the tumult" was not the true heart 
of the nation; that it was temporary; that even while it 
seemingly occupied the seat of authority, the opinions and 
the lives of the obscure aristocracy were working their way 
to the fore. He was content, therefore, that the clamorous 

5 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

and noisy mob should possess the present; he believed the 
silent and the better influences were moulding the nation to 
fairer form. "Let us remember," he once wrote in his note- 
book, "that all influence does not lie in a vote, nor is it 
measured by the grossness of party connection, or of party 
zeal. There is a grander influence in a man's life than in his 
special turn of a ballot to-day or to-morrow. That influence 
springs from the tenor of his life. Does he respect honesty 
and honor ? Is his course straightforward, high-minded, 
charitable, industrious ? Tell me this of him, assure me of 
this, and I tell you he is a man who is strengthening the bases 
and the hopes of our American Republic. ... I tell you 
that the color of a vote as compared with the color of a man's 
daily life, is like the color of a blooming spindle of corn in 
comparison with the golden ripeness of the corn in the ear." 
Hence, he was content to let others rule ostensibly; he pre- 
ferred to rule by example and silent influence. He believed 
that "the post of honor is the private station." 

Attempts were now and then made to lure Mr. Mitchell 
into public life. The story goes that in 1876 he was offered 
the nomination for the governorship of Connecticut. What 
purported to be his letter of declination went the rounds of 
the press at the time. I have been unable to discover the 
original of the document which I am about to quote, but I 
am convinced that Mr. Mitchell wrote it. "You tell me 
this movement is strong and popular," he began. "Suppose 
I should be elected and compelled to take up my abode in 
brick-and-mortar-environed Hartford, while all the coppices 
of Edgewood are bright with summer bloom. I would rather 
be farmer than governor; I would rather sit in my library of 
an afternoon and watch the growing corn undulating in the 
western wind, than sit in the chair of state signing bills for 

6 



THE MAN 

public acts; and the bright flag floating above the capitol 
would not be so pleasing in my eyes as the smoky banner of 
the far-off steamer seen athwart the dancing waters silvered 
in the June sunshine." Some time in April 1876, Mr. Philip 
H. Austen, of Baltimore, Maryland, one of Mr. Mitchell's 
college-mates, clipped the foregoing letter from a daily paper 
and sent it to Edgewood with the following verses: 

Writing the Reveries of a Bachelor 
Proved Ik a Marvel with his quill; 
Waiving the revenues of a governor 
Proves Ik a greater Marvel still. 

One source of Mr. Mitchell's power lay in his rare combi- 
nation of Puritan and Cavalier qualities. In this respect, I 
have always associated him with John Milton. At bottom, 
Mr. Mitchell was a Puritan; his whole character was built 
upon the foundation of Puritan morality. Although he grew 
away from the stern Puritan conception of God, he retained 
to the end a profound reverence for the Deity, and kept 
silence before Him. At the same time he was a worshipper 
of beauty. Ugliness, angularity, slovenliness, hurt him; and 
in his fight against them he never allowed his "sword to 
sleep within his hand." It was his love of beauty, his sense 
of taste, his feeling for the fitness of things that made it im- 
possible for him to reconcile himself to the architectural 
regime of Yale as he knew it. 

His appreciation of English landscape and English 
methods of beautifying home-grounds was his by right of 
inheritance. He was an interpreter to America of the best 
in British life. He belongs to the number of those choice 
spirits- -Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne, George 
W. Curtis, and William Winter — who have loved America 

7 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

without scorning Britain, who have kept the fires burning 
on the altars of friendship and affection. With them he 
knew Great Britain; knew her beauties, her foibles, her 
strengths, and her weaknesses; knew her, loved her, and 
wrote of her sympathetically. His words have done much 
to awaken a love of the mother country in many an Ameri- 
can heart. 

In this biography I have, so far as possible, tried to bring 
the reader into immediate contact with the subject. I have 
felt that where Mr. Mitchell has spoken, it would be unwise 
for any one else to speak; and lam convinced that his friends 
and readers would not wish to hear other words than his 
own. I am the more convinced of this because of the power 
of his written word to attract people. "Somehow, you have 
never seemed to me a stranger," is an oft-recurring state- 
ment in letters written to Mr. Mitchell. An interesting 
story emphasizes this quality. Mr. Julius Chambers has 
told how many years ago he spent a month in Granada, 
near the Alhambra Hill. One evening he found atop the 
watch-tower of the castle a young Spaniard deeply absorbed 
in the reading of a book which proved to be an edition of 
Reveries of a Bachelor done into Spanish by "A Student of 
Salamanca." In the course of their conversation the young 
man told Mr. Chambers that he would gladly give a year of 
his life to know the author of the little book. 

Few of Mr. Mitchell's readers knew and appreciated him 
better than did his friend William Winter, one of whose 
paragraphs I cannot resist quoting. "Everybody who has 
gained experience has observed that most persons — authors 
included — are disturbers of peace. The human being who 
tranquilizes his fellow-creatures is rare. Mitchell, from the 
first, allured his readers with gentleness, and made them 

8 



THE MAN 

calm. Washington Irving spoke of having been drawn 
toward Mitchell by the qualities of head and heart in his 
writings, but he did not name them. Perhaps he would have 
mentioned, first of all, that quality of grace which diffuses 
peace — that blending of dignity and sweetness which is at 
once the sign and the allurement of natural distinction. 
Mitchell is a writer who never stands in front of his subject, 
and who never asks attention to himself. Washington 
Irving had the same characteristic, and it was natural that 
they should be drawn together." 

Mr. Winter has spoken truly. "It is of little moment," 
said Emerson, " that one or two or twenty errors of our social 
system be corrected, but of much that the man be in his 
senses." It was Mr. Mitchell's high calling to tranquillize his 
fellow creatures; to teach them sanity and serenity; to help 
them attain unto living peace. 

His words live in the hearts of men. His touch of quiet- 
ness and order and beauty lies upon all the city of New 
Haven, and the country thereabout. The whole of New Eng- 
land has been quickened to a sure issue of beauty by his sub- 
tle, unescapable influence. It is not possible to estimate the 
far reach of his Edgewood books; one comes upon them in 
the most obscure places. It is not, however, too much to 
say that through them his rare taste is permeating all the 
United States, and is year by year guiding it to a surer sense 
and love of the beautiful. To write the biography of such a 
man is to grow toward nobler endeavor; to read it is to learn 
the sweetness and the simplicity that make life truly great. 



THE FORMATIVE YEARS 



II 

ANCESTRY AND EARLY YOUTH 

The pride which induces a man to cherish the memory of an 
honored and respected ancestor is not an ignoble pride — nor is it an 
unusual one; and he must be a sot indeed who is insensible to the 
regard which by common acclaim should attach to the name of 
his sire. — The Lorgnette, 1.255. 

And thus it is that home, boy-home, passes away forever — like 
the swaying of a pendulum — like the fading of a shadow on the 
floor. — Bream Life, 107. 

Donald Grant Mitchell came into life dowered with a 
rich heritage of blood, culture, and family tradition. His 
ancestry through six generations was of British origin. In 
the paternal line it begins authentically with Sir James 
Ware, member of the Irish Parliament in 1613, and auditor- 
general of Ireland, whose son James is remembered for his 
De Scriptoribus Hibernice (1639), a biographical dictionary 
of Irish authors. In the maternal line occur many famous 
names — Gardiners, Woodbridges, Parkers, Saltonstalls, and 
Brewsters; and the early history of New England bears wit- 
ness to the impress left by these families upon the material 
and spiritual development of the country. The pedigree of 
his maternal grandfather, Nathaniel Shaw Woodbridge 
( 1 771-1797), goes back to the Rev. John Woodbridge (d. 
J ^37)y rector of High worth, Wiltshire, England, who mar- 
ried Sara, daughter of the Rev. Robert Parker, "one of the 

13 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

greatest scholars in the English nation." The line of his 
maternal grandmother, Elizabeth Mumford (1771-1795), has 
been traced to Sir Richard Saltonstall (b. 1586), who in 1644 
was English ambassador to Holland, where Rembrandt 
painted his portrait; and includes William Brewster (b. 1560), 
of the Mayflower > "ruling elder and spiritual guide of the 
Pilgrim Fathers." Soldiers, sea-captains, statesmen, au- 
thors, and divines appear and reappear in the long history of 
both ancestral lines. They were mostly English and Scotch, 
with now and then an admixture of Irish and Welsh. They 
have been, on the whole, capable, industrious, fearless, up- 
right, and, above all, honest. For well-nigh three hundred 
years they have upheld the best traditions of the British 
race, and have blended sturdy strength and unyielding spirit 
with bright fancy and quick wit. 

Mr. Mitchell was always reasonably proud of his an- 
cestry. For him, the achievements of his forefathers were 
incentives to high living and individual effort. His keen 
humor and clear common sense lifted him far above any 
dependence upon mere pride of birth; he was never stultified 
by ancestral greatness; he never allowed the weight of pedi- 
gree to become oppressive. Some of his sharpest satirical 
thrusts were directed toward those whose only claim to 
attention rested upon the deeds of illustrious forebears; 
and he never ceased to enjoy Sir Thomas Overbury's refer- 
ence to the "potato-fields" of ancestry. "Individuality," 
he wrote, "seems to me the best stamp and seal that a man 
can carry: if he cannot carry that, it will take a great deal to 
carry him. If a man's own heart and energy are not equal 
to the making of his fortune, he will find, I think, a very 
poor resort in what Sir Tommy Overbury calls 'the potato 
fields of his ancestors;' meaning, by that cheerful figure, that 

14 



ANCESTRY AND EARLY YOUTH 

all there is good about the matter is below ground." * 
Through Sir Richard Saltonstall, Mr. Mitchell could trace 
connection with Edward III of England; but he was very 
careful not to let the fact be known. In 1895 ne prepared a 
chart for his daughter Mary upon which this Edward con- 
nection was shown. Within a few days he was regretting his 
action. "I don't know," he began (January 6th, 1896), "if 
you have received a letter I wrote to you some ten days ago; 
but write again to say that I shall be very much mortified and 
'put out' if you give any 'forward* place to the 'pedigree* 
which I sent. Put this out of sight, and some time I will 
make a nicer one going back only to colonial times, which 
can be boasted of without vulgar braggadocio ! It was only 
to amuse you for the Christmas season that I prepared it. 
I have laughed, ever since I could laugh sardonically at any- 
thing, at the vulgar pretention of those who make a boast, 
or a show of such ' tagging* at royalty, or its shadows, and 
should be dreadfully mortified at your calling any special 
attention to that 'gim-crack* of a pedigree." The noble 
pride which he cherished for those whose blood flowed in his 
veins became for him a source of strength manifesting itself 
quietly and without ostentation in a worthiness of life and 
work that added lustre to the long ancestral story. How 
well he knew that story may be learned from an examination 
of the Woodbridge Record^ his lasting memorial to family his- 
tory and achievement. 

In 1885 ne wr °te a brief account of his family in which he 
gave such information as he considered of immediate im- 
portance. From it I make a few extracts: 

I am able to tell . . . very little of James Mitchell . . . save 
that he came from Scotland — neighborhood of Paisley — about the 

1 Fudge Doings, 1.32. 
!5 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

year 1730, and settled in Wethersfield. He married, shortly after, 
a daughter of the well-known family of Buck, in that town. . . . 

By a second marriage with Rebecca Mix, daughter of Rev. 
Stephen Mix, of Wethersfield, the emigrant James became the 
father of Stephen Mix Mitchell, my grandfather. What the avo- 
cations of James Mitchell may have been, or what means, if any, 
he brought with him from the old country, I never knew. I re- 
member only that an ancient house of the colonial type stood upon 
the southwestern angle of my grandfather's home lots, on Wethers- 
field Street, and was called the homestead of "Grandfather James." 
I have further heard that he was sometime engaged in the West 
India trade; the fact that a grandson died at sea, and another in 
the West Indies, seems to favor the tradition about his over-sea 
trade; but I know nothing of it definitely. 

. . . Stephen Mix, only child by his second marriage, married 
in due time Hannah Grant, daughter of a well established land- 
holder and merchant of Newtown, Conn., Donald Grant, who 
had come from Scotland — neighborhood of Inverness — about 1735. 
The passport of this Donald Grant, with its commendation of 
the bearer by the authorities of the parish of Duthel, Invernes- 
shire, is still in my possession; and so is the old-style, flint-lock 
fowling-piece which he brought with him on his migration. Shortly 
after the marriage of Stephen Mix (1769), his father, James 
Mitchell, then for a second time a widower, married for his third 
wife, Mrs. Arminal (Toucey) Grant, the mother of his son Stephen's 
bride. A speech thereanent, credited to the veteran bridegroom 
James, used to be current in the family: "My boy has ta'en the 
chick, so I'll e'en gather in the old hen." 

My grandfather, Stephen Mix Mitchell, was educated at Yale, 
class of 1763, was tutor there in 1766, and received the degree of 
LL.D. in 1807. He was in the same year, I think, appointed 
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the State of Connecticut. 
He had previously been Judge, for many years, of the county 
court; he was also a delegate to the Old Congress, where he was 

16 



ANCESTRY AND EARLY YOUTH 

much associated with his colleague, Hon. William Samuel Johnson, 
of Stratford, an association which led to much intimacy between 
the families of the two delegates. Subsequently (1793) ne was 
appointed United States Senator from Connecticut. He did good 
service for his state in establishing her title to the "Western Re- 
serve" lands in Ohio; and from all accounts which have come to 
my knowledge, did other service to his generation by living up- 
rightly, and dealing fairly with all men. My grandfather was a 
tutor at Yale long before the day of his ex officio fellowship; and I 
have heard the story told in our family circle, fifty years ago, that 
when Timothy Dwight, the first, presented himself for admission 
to college, Tutor Mitchell took the future president upon his 
knee — so small and young was he — in prosecuting the examina- 
tion. 

I have quite a vivid recollection of the personality of the old 
gentleman (he died in 1835) — a % ure Dent with the weight of over 
ninety years, abounding white hair, a face clean-shaven, an aquiline 
nose, and an eye that seemed to see everything. The portrait by 
Professor S. F. B. Morse [painted in 1827] ... is wonderfully 
like the venerable man whom I remember, and at whose house in 
Wethersfield I used to make my semi-annual visits in journeying 
to and from the old school at Ellington. I remember distinctly 
his long woollen hose and his knee-buckles, and his oaken staff — 
on which he leaned heavily such times as he trudged away to his 
barns for a look at his cattle, or the fondling of some pet beast. 
His long coat — such as you see in pictures of Franklin — had huge 
lapels and pockets; these latter often bulging out with ears of corn, 
on the visitations I speak of, for the pampering of some favorite 
horse or pig. 

He had never but one home, that upon the angle of two of the 
Wethersfield streets (it is the first angle one encounters in going 
northerly from the brick "meeting house"); he clung to that home 
with Scotch tenacity, and brought up there a family of eleven 
children, who all reached mature years. Now, there is not a ves- 

17 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

tige left of the house in which he lived; nor any trace of the gardens 
with their "ox-heart" cherry trees, which flanked it north and 
south. I don't think there's a tree left thereabout which was 
standing in his time; but, on a late visit, I was fortunate enough to 
encounter an oldish native who remembered distinctly my grand- 
father, as I have described him, and his gambrel-roofed house, 
which was a capital type of a New England homestead. He re- 
called, too, much to my delectation, the low " chariot " which the 
rheumatic old gentleman had specially constructed (it was before 
the day of Park phaetons), and in which, with his venerable horse 
"Whitey" tackled thereto, he trundled through the village streets 
and along the "Har'ford meadows." He died at the goodly age 
of ninety-two, and lies buried near the summit of the hillock in 
the Wethersfield churchyard. 

The eldest son of Judge Mitchell was Donald Grant (b. 1773), 
whose commission as Captain in the U. S. Army, signed by George 
Washington, is now hanging upon my library wall; a miniature por- 
trait of him in his regimentals, which is also in my possession, 
shows a handsome blue-eyed young man of twenty- three; indeed, 
my aunts always spoke of him (with sisterly unction) as having 
been conspicuously handsome. He was much a favorite, too; and 
the story ran, in the Wethersfield house, that on a time a certain 
distinguished British visitor whose acquaintance the Judge had 
made in Philadelphia, was so impressed by the young Donald that 
he proposed taking him with him to London, engaging in that case 
to purchase for him a captaincy in the British army. To this, 
however, the patriot Judge would not accede, preferring for his boy 
the humble pay and perquisites belonging to the same grade in his 
country's service. Donald, however, did not long enjoy his cap- 
taincy; he died of yellow fever in Baltimore, in August of 1799. 
He was a graduate of Yale, 1792; as indeed were all the six sons of 
Chief Justice Mitchell. 

Alfred (b. 1790) my father was the youngest son of Justice 
Mitchell, and the only clergyman in his family. He graduated at 

18 





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BHHhIII^^iI *** ' Ji 




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m. fl fek 








BL - ■ 






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STEPHEN MIX MITCHELL. 

First Chief Justice of Connecticut. Grandfather of Donald G. Mitchell. 

From a portrait by S. F. B. Morse, painted in 1827. 



ANCESTRY AND EARLY YOUTH 

Yale, 1809; studied thereafter at Andover, and at Washington, 
Conn., and in 18 14 was ordained a minister to the parish of Chelsea 
in the town of Norwich. At about the same date he married 
Lucretia Woodbridge of Elmgrove, Lyme (now Salem), whom he 
had first encountered on his ministrations in the surrounding towns. 
Miss Woodbridge was one of two orphan daughters of Nathaniel 
Shaw Woodbridge, whose father was Rev. Ephraim Woodbridge of 
New London, and thus came in direct line of descent from Rev. 
John Woodbridge of Wethersfield, who married a daughter of Gov. 
Leete, and the earlier Rev. John Woodbridge of Andover, whose 
wife was daughter of Gov. Dudley. On the maternal side Miss 
Woodbridge was descended from the Christophers, the Gardiners 
of Gardiner's Island, and the Saltonstalls of New London. 

In his first and only parish of Chelsea, now Second Church of 
Norwich, Rev. Alfred Mitchell served some seventeen years, when 
he died aged forty-one. Those who knew him say that he greatly 
loved and exalted his office of preacher; and that while retiring and 
shy in his ordinary intercourse with men, boldness came to him 
when he entered his pulpit; and that he taught as one who believed 
thoroughly all that he taught. His home, unchanged through- 
out his life, was upon "the Plain," just northward of the present 
Slater Memorial Hall; and its territory embraced a small tract of 
wood, of garden, and of orchards. It is said that he loved these 
overmuch, and of all society enjoyed most that which he found at 
his own fireside. I remember very little of the personal appear- 
ance of my father ... all the less, since during the last year of 
his lifetime I was mostly away from home, at school. Only dimly 
do I recall his tall figure leaning over the pulpit-cushion, and the 
wonderful earnestness of his manner. 

Alfred Mitchell was ordained to the ministry of the 
Second Congregational Church of Norwich, Connecticut, 
October 27th, 1814. On the 16th of January 1815, he mar- 
ried Miss Lucretia Woodbridge, and established a home in the 

19 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

"parsonage house" at Norwich. This large square dwelling, 
built about 1785, faced the old Parade, or Great Plain, where 
now is Williams Park. It was a beautiful home, set in the 
midst of ample grounds, flanked by orchards, and girt about 
by woodland heights in the rear. 

The surroundings of the parsonage home made a power- 
ful appeal to Alfred Mitchell, and deepened his already 
strong love of nature. We are told that the woodland heights 
became his "walk, study, and oratory." A part of his staid 
and exacting congregation was inclined to think him a bit 
eccentric, when he built in a remote corner of those wooded 
hills a little summer-house whither he withdrew to study and 
meditate. For recreation and quiet joy he turned to garden 
and orchard; and his fondness for flowers and fruits was 
transmitted to his children, especially to Donald. United 
with this deep sense of the beautiful, and love of its manifesta- 
tion in nature, was a stern, unyielding Puritanism. His no- 
tion of religion and of its responsibilities exercised a some- 
what tyrannous and repressive influence upon him; the Puri- 
tan within him came to predominate, and made him appear 
more serious and reserved than he was by nature. There is 
no doubt that many of the characteristics which Donald 
ascribes to Dr. Johns were the outcome of youthful memories 
of his father. 

The contemporaries of Alfred Mitchell were impressed by 
his personal appearance and his "most amiable and interest- 
ing manners." His portrait reveals an attractive face, and 
the large, thoughtful eyes of a dreamer. "His countenance," 
wrote Albert T. Chester, "was benignant, though exceed- 
ingly grave and solemn; his gait and attitudes were all digni- 
fied. In speech he was deliberate; every thought was well 
examined before it was permitted to pass his lips. This gave 

20 



ANCESTRY AND EARLY YOUTH 

him an appearance of reserve and coldness which, however, 
his uniform kindness and amiable temper ever contradicted. 
His sermons . . . delivered . . . with increased animation, 
fairly startled the congregation. " In his Annals of the 
American Pulpit > Dr. William Buell Sprague records that 
Mr. Mitchell was "a good scholar, and was particularly dis- 
tinguished for a judicious, fearless independence, united with 
great conscientiousness, though he was diffident in his man- 
ners to a fault." He was unusually sensitive to the responsi- 
bilities of his calling, and labored with increasing zeal, grow- 
ing all the while perhaps more reserved in manner and more 
exacting in his own religious life. There is a probability that 
his death at the early age of forty-one was the result of over- 
exertion in conducting revival services — an overtaxing of 
physical and spiritual energies. 

Lucretia Woodbridge brought sterling qualities of head 
and heart to the Norwich manse. She had never known the 
love of either parent. Her father, during the seven years of 
his married life, occupied a country estate near Elmgrove, 
Salem, which he had inherited from his mother's people, the 
Shaws. Here he lived as "a country squire, devoted to 
horses, dogs, hunting, and out-of-door sports, and probably 
had little to do with the practical side of a farmer's life. He 
was of an affectionate nature, and devotedly attached to his 
friends. . . . He was convivial in his tastes, generous to a 
fault, a careless liver; and finally, the delicacy of his constitu- 
tion, which he had inherited from his father and mother, 
developed into consumption, which ended his life at the 
early age of twenty-six." x Upon the death of her father, 
two years after that of her mother, Lucretia, not yet two 
years old, was taken by her grandparents, John and Lucretia 

1 Chronicles of a Connecticut Farm, 1769-1905. Compiled by Mary E. Perkins. 

11 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

Christophers Mumford, who lived near by at Elmgrove, her 
paternal grandparents being already dead. 

A portrait of Lucretia Woodbridge painted by Samuel 
Waldo about 1815 passed to the son Donald, and for more 
than fifty years has hung above the mantelpiece in the Edge- 
wood library. It is the portrait of a beautiful young woman. 
The delicately moulded chin, the sensitive mouth, the eye- 
brows distinctly outlined, the soft, luminous, trustful eyes, 
all speak of unusual refinement of character. She had been 
reared in the Episcopalian faith. Of course, when she be- 
came the wife of Alfred Mitchell, she entered a chillier, 
sterner religious atmosphere. Religious by nature, she bent 
herself very conscientiously to conformity with the new con- 
ditions, and doubtless held herself to many an undeserved 
reckoning. All the sternness and discipline of a Puritan 
ministers home could not, however, sour or overlay the 
sweet naturalness of her religion, and Donald testifies to the 
influence of his mother as worth more in the life of her chil- 
dren than all the sermons and catechisings. 

Husband and wife were congenial, and their short wedded 
life was, in spite of burdens of ill health and death, more 
than ordinarily happy. A portion of a letter written in 18 16 
or 1 817 (postmarked May 1st) to her husband from her old 
home, where she was visiting, is illuminating, and helps us to 
realize somewhat of the conditions out of which it came. It 
is eloquent of the conflict between her love and her acquired 
Puritan tenets. It is, indeed, just such a letter as sweet 
little Rachel Johns might have written to her goodman, the 
Rev. Dr. Benjamin Johns: 

How true it is [she writes] that in the midst of happiness the 
sighing heart will remind us of imperfection. I find even at Elm- 

11 



ANCESTRY AND EARLY YOUTH 

grove, surrounded by near and dear friends, I have many thoughts 
hovering around our snug little parlour and its poor, solitary in- 
mate, and wish often that he could make one of our happy circle. 
But it is best that we should be sometimes separated. I find by it 
that I am making too much an arm of flesh my confidence, and for- 
getting that gracious Being, the author of every mercy, on whom 
alone all my trust should be stayed. I hope you do not fail to com- 
mend us to his protecting care, and implore his grace to strengthen 
and assist me in every duty. Thus far I have experienced his 
loving kindness and tender mercy. . . . 

Of such parents and amid such surroundings, Donald 
Grant, fourth child and second son, was born on the 12th 
of April 1822. The pages of his books reveal how open and 
sensitive was his youthful mind to impressions of home 
surroundings. Reveries of a Bachelor •, Dream Life, About Old 
Story Tellers, Br. Johns, and Bound Together have woven 
into their very texture the story of his young days; fact, and 
memory, and fiction blend into a web that only the author 
himself could ever satisfactorily unravel. Few men have 
written so wholly out of their own experience. And yet, 
according to his own testimony, his recollections did not ex- 
tend to an unusually early age: 

I wonder [he wrote in an autobiographical fragment of 1894] at 
those autobiographies which carry back recollections to the age of 
three, four, and five. The farthest-back memory which I can fix 
by years is when my father, or one of the children, alluded to my 
birthday of five years (1827). I know I was seated on the nurse's 
knee, and she was putting on my shoes when I looked up to the 
interlocutor. I remember, too, a severe punishment from my 
father at the same age — perhaps six months, earlier — when for 
some sharp assault upon the same good old nurse (either biting or 
kicking), my father snatched me from her lap — as I was, half- 

23 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

dressed — took me out of doors, and dipped me into the tub by the 
well where the horses drank, to cool me off. This is distinct to me 
now at ce. 72. From this, and other recollections, I am sure my 
father must have been a very severe disciplinarian; too severe to 
kindle a child's best love. I know my feeling toward him was very 
different from that toward my mother. We — all of us, I think — 
went to her first. 

Notwithstanding Mr. Mitchell's statement about the 
period of his first recolkctions, there is no doubt whatever 
of the sharpness and tenacity of his memory. Nor is there 
any doubt that the spell of the past fell upon him very early. 
The Tennysonian "passion of the past" was his seemingly 
by right of birth. One has only to look at the drawing of 
Norwich, entitled "A Boyhood Memory," which he made 
m 1895, to gain some little conception of the quality of his 
memory, and of the kind of thing which imprinted itself up- 
on his boy mind. It is interesting to observe that the course 
of his life fostered this peculiar quality of mind and memory. 
The brevity of his early home life, the shadows that came 
with each death, the final break-up of his home in boyhood, 
the long period of exile in Europe, all had their powerful 
influence in moulding a nature already sensitive by inheri- 
tance to an unusual degree of sensitiveness and sadness. 
Throughout his life he loved to turn to "the days that are no 
more," and in the very temple of Delight he found with 
Keats the sovran shrine of Melancholy, and dared to burst 
Joy's grape with strenuous tongue against his palate fine. 
Inherited tendencies and the circumstances of his early life 
steadily moulded him for the kind of writing in which he was 
to excel. 

The strongest of his early impressions were religious, and 
those unpleasant and such as colored all the rest of his life. 

24 



ANCESTRY AND EARLY YOUTH 

Always a devoutly religious man — with a strong tincture of 
Puritanism — he yet never failed to deprecate the old methods 
as he knew and remembered them. The fifth chapter of 
Dream Life is wrought out of his own early religious experi- 
ences. In the light of his youth it seems inevitable that he 
should have written such a book as Dr. Johns. From almost 
illegible pencil notes made by Mr. Mitchell when he was be- 
tween seventy and eighty-five, the following narrative in his 
own words is arranged. He believed in jotting down such 
reminiscences, and, furthermore, recognized the value of 
them when put into print. " Reminiscence," he wrote, "is 
not egotism; what is valued in it is the side-light thrown 
upon the history of the times; the deliberate, interspaced 
coloring which supplies what larger and more serious history- 
making smiles at as irrelevant and unimportant." 

But [he asks] are these little touches unimportant? The shoes 
in a row by the side of the fire-place: that, in mid-winter, the warm 
place; the old cook a little squally and impatient with us cluster- 
ing there; but we bore the scorchings, the cuffs, the little, good- 
natured buffets, for love of the griddle-cakes coming to a delicious 
brown upon the great, round griddle-iron suspended on the end of 
a great crane; and swinging it out as occasion demanded for a little 
dab of her butter-swab, or a good wipe with some reserved cloth; 
or for ladling upon it with ever so much of dexterity a little, slowly- 
spreading island of creamy, delectable, floury mixture, from which 
the brown, dappled, unctuous buckwheat cakes with white edges 
and chocolate expanse of middle parts were presently evolved. No 
range — no stove — only that great wood-fire with huge, lumbering 
log, a great lift for Ebenezer, the stout negro in charge of wood- 
stores. 

Family prayers on buckwheat cake days were always too long; 
or when a crisp morning tempted us to sliding down hill — coasting 

25 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

was a word not known in that day. Then school was opened with 
another chapter reading and another prayer; this was an awful 
banality; family feeling softened the other, my hand touching the 
mother's gown; made it bearable, proper, nay beautiful, when the 
sliding was not over good, or other things tempted, such as scent 
of buckwheat cakes on the round griddle, which always diffused 
through the house a festive odor of its own. 

Then the "asking a blessing" — always sure, but under home 
utterance not very long, and serving as warning to eat, and not 
more noticed than the ticking of the clock, or the little whirl of 
some alarm gear in its body before the striking of every hour (I 
think this simile came to me early). But when a strange clergy- 
man came from the up-country, the wild places of Griswold or 
Voluntown, who thought it wise to interlard the "blessing asking" 
with a little didactic discourse, it fretted all of us fearfully, I think, 
though my oldest sister always wore an appreciative air — so far as 
she could with her eyes tight shut. 

The cook, if not in dough, was always called in for family 
prayers; and the chambermaid, always; the "hired man" usually 
on Sundays. The family prayers were often varied by the nasal 
adjunct of extempore pleadings of country ministers come for the 
Sabbath. Decanters of spirits, kept out of sight in the side-board 
and rarely seen, were always brought forth for these aged brothers 
who had driven a long way in the cold. The custom was always 
extenuated, but the decanters were never brought to the front with 
eagerness, or pride, or appetite. These country ministers are 
worth picturing — as old Waldo, lame and bringing his own un- 
leavened bread with him; Nelson, that giant whom I never saw 
without associating with Goliath, as a sort of cousin of the Philis- 
tine. These all we hated to see; we knew they would make long 
and weary and wandering prayers; it cured the love for long prayers 
very permanently. My appetite for them has remained in a 
shrunken state ever since. Why not? Isn't it a clean, a worthy, 
and a decorous instinct which shivers and shrinks from wearisome 

26 



ANCESTRY AND EARLY YOUTH 

platitudes in setting forth one's intimate relations with the God of 
all, toward whom all approaches should be wrapped in awe ? No, 
no, that old "huckstering" of the business of prayer, and burden- 
ing it with genuflections, and ponderous sentences, and nasal itera- 
tions, was, so far as young minds were concerned, a prodigious 
mistake. It put dread and shivering and a weary spirit where one 
should be taught, if teaching could, to put into worship a quiet, 
glad burst of joyousness and of hope. One little tenderness of 
admonition from a mother's lips, one little burst of according mel- 
ody, were worth then, and worth always, more than reams of elon- 
gated pulpit-promise and rebuke. 

Then the Bible reading urged upon us every day with promises 
of pay in gifts for well-deserving in this matter. This was dread- 
ful; this had not an ounce of helping toward any good purposes. 
So much did this feeling keep by me in the development of the next 
four or five years that, when within the lapse of time I came some- 
how to a knowledge of the Roman Catholic dispensation in this 
regard — of excluding the Bible from free family and childish read- 
ing, I could not help (in spite of some martyrology in the house, 
which showed Papish people burning Protestant people) entertain- 
ing a very friendly and appreciative regard for this portion of 
Roman Catholic regimen. Nor, indeed, with the advance of years, 
have I found reason, on moral or religious grounds, to approve 
those severely Puritan rulings which enforced the reading of the 
Scriptures seriatim upon young people. They come thus to enter- 
tain much such opinion of it as they entertain of any other en- 
forced reading of history or text-books. A distaste and indiffer- 
ence grow in ground thus fertilized, and religious ideas watered 
with plentiful tears get preposterous shapes. 

And then the drill in the catechism, with "reasons annexed," 
and the long, long hours at church, seeming to listen, but not listen- 
ing, to the sermons; usually catching the text and holding it in 
mind as something likely to be called for. The general idea of 
conversion was of something that might strike like lightning; and 

27 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

with this a dreadful sense of the inefficacy of any work or any re- 
solves, or any prayer even, till the lightning of conversion had 
struck. I think I grew into a hate and dread of that word, and 
am not over it yet. 

Young Donald's years of uninterrupted home life were 
few. In the autumn of 1830, in company with his father, he 
made the journey in the family chaise of some thirty-five 
miles northwestward from Norwich to Ellington, and was 
entered as a boarding pupil in the school of which his father 
was then a proprietor. Ellington was a typical New Eng- 
land boarding-school of that day, with many resemblances 
to contemporary English institutions of the same kind. Its 
founder and principal was Judge John Hall, a Yale graduate 
of 1802, who, without being brutal, ruled with inflexible 
Puritanism. If he was exacting toward the boys under his 
control, he was first of all exacting toward himself, and at 
heart was sound. He believed in hard work and rigid disci- 
pline, and was especially zealous in the performance of what 
seemed to the boys a dreary and monotonous form of out- 
ward religion. In his own way he was kind, and in spite of 
all his severity and dreariness, was remembered by most of 
his pupils with gratitude. Under Judge Hall's direction, 
with intervals of vacation and enforced rest for the sake of 
health, Donald remained at the Ellington school until the 
summer of 1837. Until 1835 he enjoyed there the com- 
panionship of his brother Stephen, with whom he roomed. 

It must have been a rude shock for the sensitive and deli- 
cate lad of eight to be separated from home and thrown upon 
his own responsibility among an assemblage of rough school- 
boys. What his emotions were during those first days at 
Ellington we may read in Reveries of a Bachelor. 1 We may 

1 See pp. 159-171; also pp. 230-236, "School Revisited." 
28 



ANCESTRY AND EARLY YOUTH 

infer something as to the strength of those emotions when we 
remember that the young man of twenty-eight who wrote 
the Reveries was reviewing his boyish experiences from a dis- 
tance of twenty years. The narrative there written is rooted 
deep in fact. The "tall stately building" of the Reveries, 
"with a high cupola on the top," was indeed the Ellington 
school. "We marched in procession to the village church on 
Sundays" was, to use a sentence which Mr. Mitchell himself 
inserted in one of his copies of the Reveries, "literally true of 
the Sundays in the Ellington church." Even the "scholar 
by the name of Tom Belton, who wore linsey gray, made a 
dam across a little brook by the school, and whittled out a 
saw-mill that actually sawed," he identified in the copy of 
Reveries mentioned above as a youngster by the name of 
Savage, from Hartford, Connecticut. "The head master, 
in green spectacles," who bade the boys good-by as they 
started home for term vacations, was none other than Judge 
Hall. 

We may be sure that the youthful dreamer was writing 
from the heart when he exhorted parents to "think long be- 
fore they send away their boy — before they break the home 
ties that make a web of infinite fineness and soft silken 
meshes around his heart, and toss him aloof into the boy- 
world, where he must struggle up, amid bickerings and quar- 
rels, into his age of youth." There is much in the tone of 
this passage to remind us of Mr. Robert Bridges' "Pater 
Filio" — a poem, it may be said in passing, full of the spirit 
of Mr. Mitchell. Donald seems, however, to have borne 
himself well at whatever cost of inner struggle, and to have 
suffered no unusual indignities. On the whole, his Ellington 
memories appear to have been happy; it is certain they were 
ineffaceable. 

29 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

In 1903 Mr. Mitchell was invited by a son of Judge Hall 
to speak at the dedication of a library erected at Ellington 
in honor of the old teacher. Finding it impossible to accept 
the invitation, he sent an appreciative letter of reminiscence: 

I am very sorry that I cannot join in the pleasant commemo- 
rative offices which you have plotted for this week in Ellington, in 
honor of my old and revered teacher, Judge Hall; pray count me 
as a listener (though absent) to your memorial exercises ! 

It is now seventy-three years ago — this autumn — since I first 
stopped at "Pember's Tavern," and walked up next morning, very 
much awed, to meet "The Principal," and to make my first ac- 
quaintance with the surroundings and the echoing hall-ways of 
Ellington School ! Thenceforward for seven years (with one or 
two longish vacations) I "came and went" — coming to know excel- 
lently well the old meeting-house (as it stood on the central green), 
and "Pitkin's Store," and Martin's brick shoe-shop, and "Chap- 
man's Tavern" (on the way to Snipsic), and McCrea's apple 
orchard, and — best of all — the leafy door-yard and benign presence 
of the headmaster, Judge Hall ! 

'T is well that his reverent descendants should dedicate a li- 
brary to his memory, and it is well that the people of that Elling- 
ton region should have bookish remembrances of the kind master 
who believed in thorough, painstaking teaching, and no less in all 
honesties of speech and of living. 

In full sympathy with your pious and filial undertaking, I am 

Very respectfully yours, 

Donald G. Mitchell. 
Edgewood, 9th Nov. 1903. 

After the beginning of his Ellington residence, Donald 
never again experienced an unbroken season of home life. 
Within nine years after his entrance there his parents were 
dead and their children scattered. The "Peerless Dreamer" 

30 



ANCESTRY AND EARLY YOUTH 

who was to write so finely and so sympathetically of home, of 
the joys and sorrows of childhood and youth, very early be- 
came acquainted with grief and knew the bitterness of death 
and of broken hopes. It was during the second year of his 
Ellington residence that his father died, December 19th, 1831. 
The mother, never strong and now alone with the burden of 
a large family, accepted the invitation of her uncle, Judge 
Elias Perkins, to occupy his home, the Shaw mansion in New 
London, now the home of the Historical Society. She passed 
one winter there, and there her posthumous son, Alfred 
Mitchell, was born April 1st, 1832. 

During the seven years of his boarding-school life, Don- 
ald^ vacations were spent, as circumstances dictated, with 
Norwich, New London, or Salem relatives. They were not 
periods of monotony. He never ceased to delight in the 
memory of a Thanksgiving celebration in 1832 at the home 
of his uncle, Dr. Nathaniel Shaw Perkins, an eminent New 
London physician. This celebration he made the foundation 
of a Hearth and Home editorial (November 27th, 1869), which 
later came to print in Bound Together. Another vacation 
event gives us a glimpse of the spirit of the ten-year-old lad. 
It seems that he must have been spending the October vaca- 
tion of 1832 at the home of his uncle, Henry Perkins, in 
Salem. There were probably those who ventured to wager 
that Donald had not the ability, or the courage, to ride bare- 
back one of the Perkins mares, whereupon the youngster 
not only accepted the challenge to ride but rode the entire 
twelve miles to New London, turning in to the stables of 
Dr. Perkins "awfully sore" but triumphant. For a reason 
which now seems undiscoverable, but doubtless for the sake 
of his health, he passed all of the year from the spring of 
1834 to that of 1835 m New London, carpentering during 

31 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

most of the winter months. It was at this time, perhaps, 
that he acquired much of that skill with tools which he turned 
to such good use throughout his life. 

However great may have been his tendency to dream, 
there was much in the active life of a boys' boarding-school 
to counteract it. There was also a goodly circle of close rela- 
tives among whom he moved with pleasure. One of the 
warmest of his early friendships was that with his cousin, 
Mary Perkins, daughter of the Henry Perkins whose mare 
carried him from Salem to New London. As Mary's mother 
had died early and her father had married again, she was 
brought up in Donald's family like a sister. She was ten 
years Donald's senior. A tender and beautiful intimacy 
sprang up between the two which was broken only by her 
death in 1886. 

It was a wholesome if somewhat old-fashioned, rigid, and 
Puritanical atmosphere in which Donald's early years were 
passed. At home, and among the home friends, he came into 
constant touch with serious living, high thinking, strict hon- 
esties of life and word; there he acquired a share of that lib- 
eral cultivation which, as Mark Pattison observes, if not 
imbibed in the home, neither school nor college ever entirely 
confers. From the venerable Revolutionary grandfather 
the boy doubtless heard stirring tales of the early days of 
the Republic. The books with which he became familiar 
were good books, the great books of literature. The English 
of the King James version became, of course, a part of the 
texture of his mind. He has himself told charmingly of his 
discovery of Pilgrim's Progress ; and of how, as an Ellington 
schoolboy, he used to search copies of the old New England 
Weekly Review for a possible story or poem by John G. 
Whittier. 1 As the young people of the Mitchell and the 

1 See Old Story Tellers, 219-220; and American Lands and Letters, 2.190-191. 

32 



ANCESTRY AND EARLY YOUTH 

Perkins families were growing up, they kept the inevitable 
" albums" of the period — the small note-books into which 
they transcribed for one another poems, bits of prose, ran- 
dom thoughts, chance "sentiments;" most of the material 
being solemn and dignified and not at all in keeping with the 
state of mind of the average present-day child. One of the 
earliest specimens of Donald's handwriting (dated April 14th, 
1832) is found in such an album of Mary Perkins, in which 
the ten-year-old had painstakingly transcribed a complete 
poem of the old-fashioned, sentimental variety, the first 
stanza of which may go to show that it was, to say the least, 
rather out of the ordinary for the average ten-year-old boy; 
but strictly in keeping with the bent of his own mind, which 
was later to add the touch of sure genius to pensive thoughts 
and reveries: 

Tell me, O mother, when I grow old, 

Will my hair which my sisters say is like gold, 

Grow gray as the old man's, weak and poor, 

Who asked for alms at our pillared door? 

Will I look as sad, will I speak as slow, 

As he when he told us his tale of woe ? 

Will my hands then shake, and my eyes be dim ? 

Tell me, O mother, will I grow like him ? 

At a very early age he became interested in drawing, 
and there remains a sketch which dates from his eighth year. 
It is an earnest of a talent which he diligently cultivated. 
Though almost entirely self-taught, he persevered, and devel- 
oped a great deal of skill in drawing, painting, drafting, and 
map-making, deriving not only profit from the work but 
much pleasure as well. 

There is no need of attempting to describe the manner 

33 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

in which the youthful mind reacted to the world. Mr. 
Mitchell himself has taken care to do that. Readers of his 
books may be sure that whenever he falls into reminiscent 
mood and writes of youth and the long thoughts of youth, 
they are reading not absolute fact on every page; but an ac- 
count of fact colored by the blue hazes of sweet and tender 
memories. As a record of his developing mind and spirit, 
the Reveries and Dream Life constitute the very best kind of 
autobiography not only for the period covered by this chap- 
ter but for the time until 1850. 

Those seven Ellington years were rich years. During 
that period were laid the foundations of that liberal educa- 
tion which he turned to so many and so varied uses. During 
that time, also, he was drinking in with an eagerness that 
knew no bounds all the beauties of the landscape of central 
Connecticut. Note this bit of description of an Ellington 
school-holiday: 

There were others who gave the half — if not more — of those 
sudden holidays to a tramp upon the mountain that flanked the 
little village — toiling through pasture lands where huckleberries 
grew and where sheep ran away startled by intruding steps — paus- 
ing for a drink from springs that bubbled from the ground, and 
reaching at length some veteran chestnut, under which the mosses 
mingled with the turf made delightful lounging place, where we 
lay for hours, looking down amongst the feeding cattle, and beyond 
upon the village green, where the houses stood grouped under trees, 
and upon shining streaks of road which ran out between gray zig- 
zag fences, till they were lost in distance and the summer haze. 1 

It was on such holiday excursions that the soul of young 
Donaid was all unconsciously feeding itself and burgeoning 
to fruition. 

1 Bound Together, 289. 
34 



ANCESTRY AND EARLY YOUTH 

He was by inheritance and by natural inclination 
strongly attached to Connecticut. He loved her rivers, her 
hills, her valleys, her very stones. Connecticut has had 
many sons who have brought honor to her. She has had no 
more loyal son than Donald G. Mitchell, and few who have 
extended her name and fame farther. Speaking before the 
Connecticut State Agricultural Society at Bridgeport in 
1857, he voiced something of the deep love he felt: 

Gentlemen, I rejoice, and rejoice with you, that we are planted 
where we are, among the hills and boulders of Connecticut. I re- 
joice in that very roughness which shall quicken our ingenuity, and 
in those rocks which must be fused and blasted and dispersed as 
they have been this many a year by our own dominant energy. I 
do not envy in this comparison the South her golden glories and 
her tropic luxuriance. I do not envy the West her wide reaches of 
billowy verdure and her spray of flowers tossing in the wind. I 
love, and I trust you love, the State we live in; love its scattered 
school-houses; love its church-spires lighting every landscape; love 
its ever-during hum of civilization; love its near dash of ocean, 
whose other and balancing waves are lapping to-day upon the 
shores of England. 

The hold which his native State had taken upon him 
from his earliest youth was too strong ever to be broken. 
The spell of his boyhood days was enduring. 

At last the Ellington school-days were at an end, and with 
them the first period of Donald's boyhood. It is well to 
allow him to tie all the threads of these first fifteen years into 
a delightful narrative 1 which, as it closes the story, gives us a 
glimpse of him as he faces toward the widening experiences 
of youth: 

1 His " Looking Back at Boyhood," Youth's Companion, April 21st, 1892. The 
text here given is that of the Companion article revised by Mr. Mitchell, and re- 
printed in booklet form by the Academy Press, Norwich, Connecticut, 1906. 

3S 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

I pity those young folks who pass their early years without hav- 
ing any home knowledge of gardens or orchards. City schools and 
city pavements are all very well; but I think if my childish feet 
had not known of every-day trampings through garden alleys or on 
wood walks, and of climbings in hay-lofts or among apple boughs 
when fruit began to turn, half of the joys of boyhood, as I look 
back at them, would be plucked away. 

So it happens, that when I am asked for some reminiscences of 
those early days, gone for sixty years or more, the great trees that 
sheltered my first home stir their branches again. Again I see the 
showers of dancing petals from the May bloom of apple or of peach 
trees strewing the grass, or the brown garden mold, with a little 
of that old exultation of feeling which is almost as good as a 
prayer — in way of thanksgiving. 

I think I could find my way now through all the involvements 
of new buildings and new plantings on ground that I have not 
visited for fifty years, to the spot where the blood peach grew, and 
where the mulberry stood and the greengage loaded with fruit in 
its harvest time, and the delightful white-blooming crab, lifting 
its odors into the near window of the "boys* room." 

Then there was a curiously misshapen apple tree in the far 
orchard, with trunk almost prone upon the ground, as if Providence 
had designed it for children to clamber upon. What a tree it was 
to climb ! There many a time we toddlers used to sit, pondering 
on our future, when the young robins in the nest overhead would 
be fully fledged, catching glimpses, too, before yet leaves were 
fully out, of the brown hermitage or study upon the near, wooded 
hillside, where my father, who was a clergyman, wrought at his 
sermons. 

It is only a dim image of him that I can conjure up as he strode 
at noontime down the hill. Catching up the youngest of us with a 
joyous, proud laugh, he led the toddling party — the nurse bringing 
up the rear — in a rollicking procession homeward. 

A more distinct yet less home-like image of this clergyman I 

36 



ANCESTRY AND EARLY YOUTH 

have in mind as he leaned over the pulpit of a Sunday, with a 
solemnity of manner that put one in awe, and with an earnestness 
of speech that made the Bible stories he expounded seem very 
real. 

But the sermons of those days were very long for children. It 
must have been, usually, before the middle of the discourse that I 
went foraging about the square pew, visiting an aunt who almost 
always had peppermints in her bag, or in lack of this diversion I 
could toy with the foot-stove under my mother's gown, or build 
fortifications with the hymn-books. 

The "lesser" Westminster Catechism also, with which we had 
wrestlings, was somewhat heavy and intellectually remote. But 
it was pleasantly tempered by the play of the parlor fire, or the 
benignly approving smiles when answerings were prompt. In 
summer weather the song of a cat-bird or brown-thrasher in the 
near tulip-tree chased away all the tedium of the Westminster 
divines, or perhaps lifted it into a celestial atmosphere. 

The Bible stories, though, as they tripped from my mother's 
tongue, were always delightful. I thought then, and still think — 
at sixty-nine ! — that her ways of religious teaching were by many 
odds better than that of the Westminster divines. And there were 
some of her readings from the hymn-book that tingle in my ears 
to-day. 

That compulsory Bible-reading, chapter after chapter, and day 
by day, so common in well-regulated families of those times, has 
for me a good many ungrateful memories. Wrathful, unwhole- 
some burnings were kindled by this enforced rote reading of a book 
wherefrom gladsome and hopeful splendors ought to shine. 

Of other earliest reading I remember with distinctness that 
great budget of travel and adventure, good for week-days or Sun- 
day, called the Pilgrim's Progress. Mercy, and Great-heart, and 
Christian, and Giant Despair, too, were of our family. Nor can I 
cease to call to mind gratefully the good woman, Maria Edge- 
worth, who in the earliest days of our listening to stories 

37 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

made us acquainted with the "Basket-maker's" children who 
scotched the carriage wheels, and with "Lazy Lawrence" and 
"Eton Montem." 

At what precise age I went to my first school I cannot say. It 
may have been five or six. A roundabout blue jacket with bell 
buttons I know I had, and a proud tramp past the neighbors' 
houses. 

The mistress was an excellent woman, everybody said, with a 
red ruler and discipline, and spectacles. A tap from her spectacle 
case was a summons every morning to listen to her reading, in 
quiet monotone, of a chapter in the Bible; after which, in the 
same murmurous way, she said a prayer. She taught arithmetic 
out of Colburn, I think, and Woodbridge's Geography to the older 
ones; but her prime force was lavished upon spelling. We had 
field-days in that, for which we were marshalled by companies, 
toeing a crack in the open floor. What an admiring gaze I lifted 
up upon the tall fellows who went with a wondrous glibness through 
the intricacies of such words as "im-prac-ti-ca-bil-i-ty" ! The 
mistress had her own curious methods of punishment; and I dimly 
remember how an obstreperous boy was once shut under the lid of 
the big writing desk — not for very long, I suspect. But the recol- 
lection of it, and of his sharp wail of protest, gave a very lively 
emphasis to my reading, years after, of Rogers' story of the Italian 
bride Ginevra, who closed the lid of a Venetian chest upon herself 
in some remote loft where her skeleton, and her yellowed laces, 
were found years afterward by accident. Another of the mistress's 
methods of subduing masculine revolt was in tying a girl's bonnet 
upon a boy's head. I have a lingering sense now of some such 
early chastisement, and of the wearisome pasteboard stiffness, and 
odors of the bonnet ! 

Of associates on those school benches, I remember with most dis- 
tinctness a tallish boy [William Henry Huntington, 1820-7885], my 
senior by two years or so, who befriended me in many skirmishes, 
decoyed me often into his leafy dooryard, half-way to my home, 

38 



ANCESTRY AND EARLY YOUTH 

where luscious cherries grew, and by a hundred kindly offices dur- 
ing many succeeding years cemented a friendship of which I 
have been always proud. A photograph of his emaciated, but 
noble face, as he lay upon his deathbed in Paris, is before me as 
I write. 

Another first school which I knew as privileged pupil — not es- 
teeming the privilege largely — was in the old town of Wethersfield, 
where I went on visits to my grandfather. . . . The school to 
which the old gentleman introduced me solemnly was near by, and 
of the Lancastrian order. Mr. Joseph Lancaster had come over 
from England not many years before to indoctrinate America. 
There was great drill of limbs and voices; but what specially im- 
pressed me was a long tray or trough of moistened sand, where we 
were taught to print letters. I think I came there to a trick of 
making printed letters which was never lost. 

There was a quiet dignity about Wethersfield streets in that 
day. There were great quiet houses before which mighty trees 
grew — houses of the Welleses, of the Chesters, of the Webbs — in 
some of which Washington had lodged in his comings or goings. 
It was through that quiet Wethersfield street, and by way of the 
"Stage" office at Slocomb's Hotel in Hartford, that I must have 
traveled first to Judge Hall's Ellington school. There for six en- 
suing years, off and on, I wrestled with arithmetic and declamation, 
and Latin and Greek. It was a huge building — every vestige gone 
now — upon a gentle eminence overlooking a peaceful valley town. 
I am sure some glimpses of the life there must have found their 
way into some little books which I have had the temerity to pub- 
lish. 

The principal, a kindly, dignified old gentleman, lived apart, in 
a house amongst gardens and orchards; but the superintendent, 
the English master, the matron, and the monitors were all housed 
with us, and looked sharply after discipline. When I hear boys of 
near kith complaining of the hardships they endure, I love to set 
before them a picture of the cold chambers opening upon the corri- 

39 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

dors in that huge building. We dressed there by the dim light 
coming through ventilators over the doors, from lamps swinging 
in the hall. After this it was needful to take a swift rush out of 
doors, in all weathers, for a plunge into the washroom door, where 
"He made our ablutions. Another outside rush followed for the 
doors opening upon the dining-hall, where morning prayers were 
said. Then an hour of study in a room reeking with the fumes of 
whale-oil lamps went before the summons to breakfast. There 
were two schoolrooms. The larger was always presided over by a 
teacher who was nothing if not watchful. The smaller was allotted 
to a higher range of boys, and here the superintendent appeared 
at intervals to hear recitations. 

I shall never forget the pride and joy with which I heard the 
superintendent — I think it was Judge Taft, thereafter Attorney 
General, and Minister to Russia — announce, once upon a time, my 
promotion to the south schoolroom. Frank Blair, the general of 
Chickamauga, was a bench-mate with me there. Once upon a 
"composition" day we were pitted against each other; but who 
won the better marks I really cannot say. Teacher Taft [Alphonso, 
father of the Hon. William Howard Taft] was an athlete. He 
could whip with enormous vigor, some boys said; but I have only 
the kindest recollections of him. I used to look on with amazed 
gratification as he lifted six "fifty-sixes," strung upon a pole, in 
the little grocery shop past which we walked on our way to swim 
in Snipsic Lake. 

What a beautiful sheet of water it was in those days ! Its old 
shores are now all submerged and blotted out by manufacturers' 
dams. What a joyous, rollicking progress we made homeward, of 
a Saturday afternoon, with the cupola and the great bulk of build- 
ing lifting in our front against the western sky ! 

The strong point of the teaching at Ellington was, I think, 
Latin. I am certain that before half my time there was up, I 
could repeat all the rules in Adam's Latin Grammar verbatim, 
backward or forward. As for longs and shorts and results and 

40 



ANCESTRY AND EARLY YOUTH 

quantities and the makeup of a proper hexameter, these were 
driven into my brain and riveted. Even now I am dimly conscious 
on uneasy nights, of the 

^tiadrupedante putrem sonitu 

making its way through my dreams with the old schoolboy gallop. 
I could stretch this screed farther, but the types forbid. The 
home, with a glimpse of which I began the paper, had been broken 
up a long time before the high school experience came to an end. 
Later, in the spring of 1837, the shattered, invalid remnant of its 
flock was sailing homeward from a winter in Santa Cruz. In July 
of the same year I set off from Ellington, by the "Hartford, Ware, 
and Keene Dispatch Line" of stages, seated beside the driver, 
with twenty dollars in my pocket and my trunk on the roof of 
the coach, to enter Yale College. 



41 



Ill 

THE YALE DAYS 

The scene now changes to the cloister of a college — not the 
gray, classic cloisters which lie along the banks of the Cam or the 
Isis . . . nor yet the cavernous, quadrangular courts that sleep 
under the dingy walls of the Sorbonne. The youth-dreams . . . 
begin under the roof of one of those long, ungainly piles of brick 
and mortar which make the colleges of New England. — Dream 
Life, 1 1 8-1 19. 

It would be strange if you, in that cloister life of a college, did 
not sometimes feel a dawning of new resolves. They grapple you, 
indeed, oftener than you dare speak of. Here, you dream first of 
that very sweet, but very shadowy success, called reputation. — 
Dream Life, 132. 

The long and close connection of the family with Yale 
College undoubtedly gave it foremost place in the affections 
of Alfred Mitchell's sons; and yet Stephen, the first of them, 
turned elsewhere. Donald used to relate with keen zest 
how his brother, in the summer of 1835, having driven over 
to Williamstown, Massachusetts, to visit Williams College, 
met upon his entrance to the town "only a cow and a horse 
grazing on the commons," and disgruntled at the rural ap- 
pearance and quietness of the place, went on to Northamp- 
ton and entered Amherst. We may be sure, however, that 
Ellington boys were given a strong urge toward Yale, and 
there is nothing to show that Donald ever thought of con- 
tinuing his education elsewhere than at the New Haven col- 
lege. 

42 



THE YALE DAYS 

We of the present need, perhaps, to be reminded of the 
New Haven and the Yale of 1 837, when the fifteen-year-old 
Donald and four of his Ellington comrades, like young 
knights upon a strange, new quest, first came driving along 
the pleasant, shaded streets. New Haven was then an iso- 
lated town of some 13,000 inhabitants — a kind of backwoods 
Athens. Not until two years later was railway connection 
with the outside world established. The Farmington Canal 
was then a main road of traffic, and stage-coaches the chief 
means of travel. It was for the most part a wood-burning 
town, anthracite coal having been introduced only ten years 
before. Even prior to 1837, however, the beauty-loving zeal 
of James Hillhouse had been instrumental in transforming 
New Haven into the "City of Elms." 

The college was equally primitive. The faculty num- 
bered only 31; the total attendance in all departments 
was but 564. The physical aspect of things on and around 
the campus has changed almost beyond recognition. "Of 
the ancient architectural regime at Yale, where there was 
uniformity, if ugliness; and where one was not disturbed 
by a variance of style as large and multitudinous as the ca- 
prices of the respective builders or donors," as Mr. Mitchell 
once playfully but not without seriousness remarked, only 
Connecticut Hall — the old "South Middle" — remains. The 
old State House still occupied the corner of Chapel and Col- 
lege Streets, and the three churches on the Green then, as 
now, lifted their spires upward. 

Late in life, Mr. Mitchell wrote two delightful accounts 
of his college days. These reminiscences, even though only 
memories of youthful experiences lingering in a mature mind 
after the lapse of more than forty-five years, are yet worth 
far more than any conjectural account. In the following 

43 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

paragraphs, and in other places throughout this chapter, the 
two are woven together: 

Four of us from the old school at Ellington who were to be 
bunched together upon the agony seats of examination came bounc- 
ing and see-sawing together over the thorough-braces of a Hartford 
coach — down through Berlin and Meriden and Wallingford, past 
plains of sand, past lines of poplars, through Whitneyville gun- 
works and thence by a long, straight stretch past woods and fields 
and silences (save our own bubbling talk) to the northern end of 
Temple Street — amazing even then for its beauty of overarching 
elms — and to the proper beginning of the town, where were then 
only sparse white houses and lamps that could be counted. But 
on the east side of the Green, midway between Chapel and Elm 
streets, where the great suite of the Tontine parlors and the bar- 
room and hall flung their light across the way, there was brilliancy 
indeed ! 

The Tontine of that day was a great hostelry. I know that 
we all who had been dressing our feathers in country quarters for a 
progress through the courts of Yale, never dreamed of any other 
way of entrance than by the lobby of the Tontine. Its very name 
had a foreign smack which seemed to make it redolent of classicism 
and of Italy. 

The freshman examinations of that far away day were held in 
the college chapel. There were six of us that went in a little 
squad together, rallying our spirits by such bantering talk as we 
could muster, across the Green upon that memorable October 
morning of 1837. The really fine proportions of the old State 
House impressed us greatly, and I think a pleasant altercation 
arose among us as to what Greek temple it was modeled after, 
whether of Theseus or Diana or the Parthenon; and I remember 
that the boy who floored us all by his erudition outside was the 
one who was worst conditioned of us all when we came to the agony 
in the Chapel. 

44 



THE YALE DAYS 

The terrors of the ordeal were very much softened by the kindly 
words of the tall, portly gentleman [Benjamin Silliman], with long 
head and close-cropped white hair, who presided over the examin- 
ing board that year; and who held kingship in all the laboratories 
of the college that year, and many years thereafter. I can recall, 
as if it were yesterday, the mingled suavity and dignity with which 
he confronted us, and how the multitudinous crow-foot wrinkles 
planted themselves on either side of his brow as he gave us a be- 
nignant, approving smile, and straightway slipped into a little cur- 
rent of kindly admonition with the same rhythmic gush of words 
which belonged to him always, and which purled away from his 
mouth every Sunday night at college prayers in a melodious, allit- 
erative flow of rounded vocables that seems to me must be re- 
sounding and reverberating still in some remote heavenly depths. 
His manner had all the warmth of a blessing in it, and put us into 
a cheery humor. 

Even in those days, when seventy-five made a good class num- 
ber, it was not easy to find lodging in the college proper. It has 
sometimes been matter of regret with me that I could not put 
"South Middle" in the schedule of my youthful opportunities; 
but I had cozy quarters down College Street beyond Crown in a 
house [then Mr. Gad Day's] which, with some modern addenda, 
still beams its old welcome from the up-stair front, broad as the 
day. 1 There I was chummed with a noble-hearted fellow and 

1 A pleasant additional and confirmatory bit of reminiscence from Mr. Mitchell's 
Preface to the Semi-Centennial Historical and Biographical Record of the Class of 
1 841 in Yale College must find place here: "There were aspects of college life familiar 
to those who . . . roomed in college which were totally unknown to those who lived 
outside. He was cognizant of hazings and smokings, about which as a dweller in 
the town the present writer knew nothing practically. Nor was ' living outside' 
the barbarism that it would seem to be now, when college dormitories are every 
year more and more gorgeously equipped. Yale men of that day were not Sybarites. 
And if, as townsman, I knew nothing of the hazings and aromatic incense burning 
about 'South Middle,' I had a very vital knowledge of the hardship of being routed 
from bed at half-past five, and of toiling in the winter season through snowdrifts 
(before the days of Goodyear rubber boots) to college prayers at six; where the 
obscurity of the old chapel was lighted only by whale-oil lamps, flickering in the 
frosty atmosphere, and where the uneasy shuffling of benumbed feet was sure to 

45 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

friend, Jacob Perkins, who in the fifties came to great honor and 
great success in his native state of Ohio — as he richly deserved 
to — and died in Cuba [1859] with his harvest of honors only half 
garnered. For the three succeeding years of the college life I held 
my eyrie in a little chamber upon the corner of High and Chapel 
streets [then the home of Dr. J. H. Kain], giving view in those 
days upon the works of a zealous little cabinet maker, who plied 
his trade and set his newly varnished tables to dry just where the 
front porch of the Art School now invites the curious stranger. A 
snug bureau of this workman's make has been my nightly compan- 
ion for fifty years. In the rear of these shops, on what is now the 
college enclosure, perhaps covered by a wing of the new Library, I 
saw at every nooning, in those far days, a file of black-habited 
theologues go in to their daily repast in the eating hall, where 
boarding "rates" were less costly than in the larger one of the col- 
lege commons. Next door to this refectory lived that great master 
of the Yale printing offices, B. L. Hamlen, Esq. 

Early prayers were appointed in that day at six of the morning, 
the college bell-ringer beginning the tintinnabulation at that hour, 
and rounding it off with the tolling and the monitory final jerk of 
sound at a quarter past. It was no joke to wend one's way from 
a point in College Street, half way between Crown and George, 
long before light of a December morning, up the street and into 
the chapel whose frosted atmosphere showed a steady stream of 



come into the pauses of good Dominie Day's tremulous invocations. After this, 
we groped our way — still under night skies — to the Division Rooms, reeking 
with oily odors, and showing steaming pans of water upon the tops of the new 
'Olmstead's patent double cylinder stoves.' 

" By lamp-light — which daybreak presently made dim — we had our drowsy reci- 
tation; then came the rush, not over eager, or with much Apician zest, to our 
'Commons' breakfast of half-past seven, under the benignant mastership of Caleb 
Mix, Steward. If a boarder was ill, and proper word came to this Benignity of the 
Commons, there was sent out a little brown pot with white parallel stripes (capacity 
three gills), of coffee and milk, with two slices of bread atop of it. And even such a 
breakfast I did sometimes devour with gusto, when the snows were too deep, or 
the way not clear for a clandestine slip down Chapel Street to 'Marm Dean's' . . . 
for her better coffee and an unctuous bit of her buttered waffles." 



46 



THE YALE DAYS 

vapor rising up from the good old president's lips as he uttered 
prayer. And when a lively pelting of sleet slanted from the north 
and a crusted snow was knee-deep under foot, the conditions pro- 
voked a good deal of that nerve and athleticism which college men 
of our day are apt to think has only come in with boating and foot- 
ball. 

After the morning service, no matter how sodden the feet, or 
how aguish the limbs, we marched in a loose, tangled procession 
to the recitation rooms. These were beastly places in those times, 
foul with whale-oil smoke, and heated with Professor Olmstead's 
patent two-cylindered stoves, far up into the tune of the eighties 
of Fahrenheit. I have an uneasy sensation of nausea even now as 
I recall the simmer of the iron pot upon the stove, the steam of wet 
garments, the ancient fish-oil smell, the rustling of the papers as 
the tutor smoothed out his check list and probed with thumb and 
forefinger into his box of names. 1 

[In those days a class was divided into middle, south, and 
north divisions.] We of the North in that time made up a little 
world of our own, revolving with others about the greater Kosmos 
of the college. Only on great field-days, such as grew out of an 
election of bully, or chairman, or a health lecture from the kindly 
and venerable Dr. Day, did we meet together as a class during the 
two first college years. 

President Day lived in a quiet little home that with its garden 
occupied ground now covered by Farnam [Hall], and stretching 
back over that portion of the campus lying north of North College. 
By a little postern opening through billowy heaps of lilacs, he 
wended his way — every morning of winter long before sunrise — 
to pray for us, and all backsliders ! 

I remember — in the days when freshman crudities of observa- 
tion were not as yet worn off — gazing admiringly from the old tim- 
ber bridge which crossed the canal at Chapel Street, upon a gaily 

1 In connection with these reminiscences the reader will thoroughly enjoy the 
"Cloister Life" chapter of Dream Life, and will recognize the solid foundation of 
fact therein. 

47 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

equipped barge with "splendid accommodations for six passen- 
gers" — drawn by two horses with ribbons flaunting from their 
headgear, and setting off with the music of a bugle toward the up- 
per wilds of Farmington and Northampton. I do not think that 
even the echoing bugle notes beguiled many of us to voyaging 
upon the canal. As a rule, we preferred the "powerful steamer 
New York, Captain Stone, Commander." There were many stage 
coaches, too, plying to the interior and along the shore; these hav- 
ing their rendezvous for the most part at an old coach tavern with 
a Lombardy poplar near it which once stood where the post-office 
building now [1895] shadows a great breadth of pavement and of 
car tracks. T was known, too, and told to incredulous up- 
country folk, that at this coach centre twenty-five people had been 
"booked" in a single day for New York ! 

The course of study in Mr. Mitchell's day was intended 
to occasion hard work. Latin, Greek, mathematics, and 
philosophy formed the bulk of it, supplemented by rhetoric, 
logic, natural philosophy, history, Kent's Commentaries on 
American Law, Paley's Natural Theology, and Wayland's 
Political Economy, Especial attention was given to literary 
training. Written translations from Latin authors were pre- 
sented weekly by the freshman class; specimens of English 
composition were exhibited once a fortnight by each member 
of the sophomore and the junior classes; the junior and the 
senior classes had forensic disputations once or twice a week 
before their instructors; and "very frequent exercises in 
declamation" before the tutors, the professor of oratory, 
and the faculty and students in the chapel, made up a tale 
of work from which there could be little escape. 1 A faculty 
of strong and stern but kindly men, assisted by tutors, ad- 
ministered this curriculum. Benjamin Silliman presided 

1 Yale catalogues, 1837-1841. 

48 



THE YALE DAYS 

over the departments of chemistry, pharmacy, mineralogy, 
and geology; James L. Kingsley was professor of Latin, 
Theodore D. Woolsey, of Greek, Chauncey A. Goodrich, of 
rhetoric and oratory; Denison Olmstead had charge of the 
natural philosophy and astronomy, Anthony D. Stanley, of 
the mathematics. 

Of these courses and these teachers, Mr. Mitchell re- 
tained to the end of his life the clearest and kindliest of 
memories: 

There were [he wrote in 1882] lectures on law, on Paley's Nat- 
ural Theology, on rhetoric and forensic exercises, which brought us 
together in the old "Rhetorical Chamber" for the most part. 
Few things in our disputatious life are finer, I think, than the fresh 
aroma of unshackled, adventurous, exuberant, lusty college ora- 
tory. But there was eloquence of another sort when our professor 
of rhetoric, Dr. G[oodrich], an intensely nervous man, with a wild 
eye and a bulging forehead, set himself to the task of demonstrat- 
ing how the great orators of England had talked in their time. It 
was no perfunctory way he had; but he grew, swift as language 
could carry him, into the old occasions of parliamentary debate, 
lashed himself into more than Burke's rage over the wrongs of the 
poor Begums of India, thundered his anathemas, with eye flashing 
and lips trembling, upon the head of Hastings, then fell away as 
easily into an oily tone and sardonic irony as he read through, 
with faultless cadence, long passages from the "Letter to a Noble 
Lord." Burke and Pitt and Sheridan and Chatham grew under 
his declamatory power and his admiring comment into a lordly 
stature from which in these forty years past I fear they have fallen 
lamentably away. 

Still more distinctly than the eloquent-talking Professor Good- 
rich], I have in mind the lithe old gentleman [David Daggett] with 
the springy step and the eager, eagle-like look, which his great 
Roman nose made vivid, who talked to us of Kent, his Commen- 

49 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

taries y and of the wide realms of law. He was fast verging on 
eighty in those days, yet erect and agile, and his voice sonorous. 
He was bravely outspoken, too, and his political affiliations — for he 
brought senatorial dignities with him — shone out in little swift 
gleams of satire that garnished his law talk. He had been judge, 
senator, and chief justice, and we stood in great awe of him. 
"Young gentlemen," I think I hear him say — he was always courte- 
ous — "Young gentlemen, for more than fifty years I have been en- 
gaged in courts and offices of law, and in all that long period I have 
met with many and many an instance where parents have despoiled 
themselves for the benefit of their children; but scarce one child, 
scarce one [a little louder] who has despoiled himself for the benefit 
of his parents.'* No figure of the old college days is more present 
to me than that of this active, brisk, erect old gentleman, in small 
clothes and in top boots, he being the last, I think, to carry these 
august paraphernalia of the past along New Haven streets. He 
picked his way mincingly over the uneven pavements, tapping 
here and there with his cane, rather to give point to his reflections, 
I think, than from any infirmness; bowing pleasantly here and 
there with an old-school lift of the hat; full of courtesies, full of 
dignity, too; and a perfect master of deportment. 

Donald's college life began under a shadow. All of his 
school-days, in fact, from the early Ellington period, were 
disturbed by his own ill health and the sufferings and deaths 
of those in his family circle. His earliest memories were 
associated with the deaths of an infant brother and a baby 
sister. He felt keenly the sufferings of his brother Louis, 
four years his junior, upon whom a childhood illness, badly 
treated, had left serious physical disabilities, against which 
he struggled calmly, patiently, and cheerfully all his life. 
From the Woodbridge ancestry there came a tendency to 
consumption, which laid a heavy toll upon the family of 
Alfred Mitchell — Donald himself overcoming the disease 
only by most favoring circumstances of which we shall learn 

5o 



THE YALE DAYS 

later on. During the winter of 1 836-1 837, Mrs. Mitchell, 
with Stephen and Elizabeth — those upon whom the disease 
had laid strongest hold — sought refuge from the rigors of the 
New England climate in Santa Cruz, returning, a "shattered, 
invalid remnant," on June 10th, 1837, just a few weeks before 
Donald's visit to New Haven to arrange the details of his 
entrance to Yale. 

Stephen had returned from Santa Cruz so much stronger 
that he undertook the management of his mother's farm at 
Salem, where he became greatly interested in stock-breeding. 
In November 1838, while attending the fair of the American 
Institute in New York City, he contracted a cold which 
sealed his pulmonary difficulties. Donald, who was follow- 
ing his brother's farming operations with zeal, and who was 
undoubtedly urging even then those amenities of farm life 
which he later advocated with such grace and telling effect, 
records the fact that under the steady approaches of the 
disease, Stephen gave up active farming and stock-raising 
for poultry-keeping; and afterward, when too weak to go out 
to the hen-house, turned to the care of cage-birds in his room. 
On the 29th of March 1839, tne mother died. Within a few 
weeks Stephen followed her. Elizabeth, the beautiful and 
fragile fifteen-year-old sister, lingered with little more than 
two years of life before her. As yet, the scourge had scarcely 
laid its touch upon Lucretia, the last remaining sister. 1 

1 The following record of the children of Alfred and Lucretia Mitchell tells its 
own story: 

Lucretia Woodbridge, b. April 1816; d. in infancy. 
Stephen Mix, b. April 13th, 18 18; d. May 30th, 1839. 
Lucretia Woodbridge, b. June 24th, 1820; d. Jan. 16th, 1845. 
Donald Grant, b. April 12th, 1822; d. Dec. 15th, 1908. 
Elizabeth Mumford, b. July 7th, 1824; d. Sept. 6th, 1841. 
Louis, b. Nov. 7th, 1826; d. July 15th, 188 1. 
Mary Perkins, b. April 1829; d. April 1st, 1830. 
Alfred, b. March 1830; d. in infancy. 
Alfred, b. April 1st, 1832; d. April 27th, 191 1. 

51 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

Throughout the four years such events constituted the mel- 
ancholy background of Donald's college life. All of this time 
his own health was threatened — he never from childhood 
knew rugged health — and there settled down upon him a 
seriousness and a gloom from which he never entirely 
emerged. 

In the summer of 1839 came the final breaking-up of the 
Mitchell home. Gen. William Williams, an old Norwich 
friend of the father and the mother, was appointed to the 
guardianship of the children. Donald had been spending 
most of his college vacations with his cousin, Mary Goddard, 
who, since 1838, had been living upon the old Mumford 
homestead, Elmgrove, in Salem. After his mother's death, 
Elmgrove became his home, and the self-sacrificing cousin 
became to him a foster-mother. Indeed, for the three sur- 
viving members of Alfred Mitchell's family — Donald, Louis, 
and Alfred — Elmgrove, and later Glenside, her Norwich 
residence, were always homes, and Mary Goddard always a 
mother. 

It was Donald's custom during his college course to buy 
a horse and buggy in New Haven and drive to Salem. After 
a summer of farm work he returned in the same way to New 
Haven and disposed of his equipage. As he used to say, 
"those were the days when college students did not keep 
their own horses." During his long drives of more than 
fifty miles over the quiet roads and through the drowsy vil- 
lages of Connecticut, the youthful student had plenty of time 
for reflection and revery. He came to know all the moods of 
this Connecticut country, and began that habit — so manifest 
throughout his writings — of investing natural scenery with 
his own feelings. If he knew sorrow, he also knew the com- 
pensations of Nature and turned to her as to a mother for 

52 



THE YALE DAYS 

comfort and healing. Home-loving by native grace, a grace 
nurtured by the sorrows and experiences of those early days, 
he came to look forward to the possession of a home of his 
own as the "bright, blessed, adorable phantom which sits 
highest on the sunny horizon that girdeth life." l In his 
college room he likewise cultivated the homelike qualities. 
One of his first purchases at Yale was a painting for his room. 
A bureau, hand-made to his order, occupied a corner. Books 
and small bits of bric-a-brac chosen for their personal appeal 
added their cheer and comfort to the surroundings. Like a 
nautilus, he was at work upon the chambered cell wherein 
year after year his soul was to build more stately mansions. 
Notwithstanding the family sorrows, Donald held closely 
to his college tasks, and there is abundant evidence that he 
went in for study. "We had to buckle to it," was his own 
comment in after years. His scholarship record, perhaps 
because of the conditions at home and the uncertain state of 
his own health, was not unusually high. He made a good 
record in all subjects, but gave his attention chiefly to litera- 
ture. He was thus early, by sure instinct, seeking the things 
which would be of most value to him in his life-work. Dur- 
ing the college year 1 838-1 839 he had the satisfaction of re- 
porting to home friends that he had been awarded eight 
dollars as a first prize for some Latin translation. Under the 
direction of Professor Woolsey he seems to have enjoyed 
to the full the work in Greek. In a first edition of Long- 
fellow's Voices of the Night — one of his favorite books in col- 
lege and always — there is a pencilled verse translation of the 
lines from Euripides with which Mr. Longfellow prefaced 
his poems — lines, as Mr. Mitchell wrote later, that "caught 
a gay scansion from many an enthusiast who was not given 

1 Reveries, 79-80. 

S3 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

to Greek in general." The translation bears date of 1840, 
and may be taken as indicative of the skill in language which 
the boy of eighteen was acquiring: 

Good old Father Night, 

Sleep-giver to toiling men, 

Come hither, haste hither thy flight, 

To the Agamemnonian home; 

Else our cares and our sorrows will quite 

Our hearts overcome, overcome ! 

As a well-earned reward of his school-days, classical phrases 
and references — what Paul Elmer More refers to as a " trick 
of easy, high-bred quotation" — came spontaneously to Mr. 
Mitchell throughout life, and add much to the pleasure 
derived from a reading of his literary work. 

Mr. Mitchell has not left us in doubt concerning his lit- 
erary enthusiasms in college. His casual references to the 
books and the men that interested him enable us to form a 
pretty clear notion of his growing mind. He kept an eager 
watch for the work of the best contemporary writers, and 
began the collection of an extensive library. As a freshman 
he bought and enjoyed the first Poems of Oliver Wendell 
Holmes. Emerson's address on "The American Scholar" 
(1837), and in particular his "Address to the Senior Class in 
Divinity College, Cambridge" (1838), were earnestly scanned 
by the young collegian. "I remember well," he wrote, 
"how the echoes of that talk to divinity students came eddy- 
ing over the quiet latitudes of New Haven, challenging eager 
young thinkers to a strange unrest, and inviting the heartiest 
maledictions of orthodox teachers, who would consign this 
audacious talker to quick oblivion." l The writings of the 

1 American Lands and Letters, 2. 94. 

54 



1 

i 



THE YALE DAYS 

"yellow-haired, blue-eyed giant, John Wilson," came in for 
their share of admiration. A complete set of Edmund Burke 
found place upon his book-shelves and came to keen and ap- 
preciative reading. Within a twelvemonth of their issue 
(i 836-1 837), as he took pleasure in recalling, the beautiful 
sextet of Moxon's volumes of Wordsworth were lying 
thumb-worn on his desk. 1 In the winter of 1840 he was an 
interested listener to Richard H. Dana's lectures on Shake- 
speare. "We upon the oaken benches were not great lovers 
of sermons in those days, or of preachers," wrote Mr. 
Mitchell, yet he bears witness to the pleasure with which he 
and his fellows listened to the occasional preaching of Horace 
Bushnell in the old college chapel. 2 One of his college note- 
books contains excerpts from more than 120 writers, Eng- 
lish, French, Greek, and Latin, with many of his favorite 
Biblical passages — all neatly copied out, and in many in- 
stances commented upon. 

While he applied himself with commendable diligence to 
his studies and enjoyed thoroughly the freedom of indulging 
his own tastes in outside literary readings, it is certain that 
he shrank from what is to-day thought of as social life. "I 
was given to solitude rather than to companionship during 
my childhood and youth," is the substance of a comment on 
his early life which he once made. That intense shyness 
which was to be so marked a quality of his entire mature 
life was now during his college days beginning to manifest 
itself. His daughter Elizabeth recalls his telling that while 
a student he went out only once to supper and then was 
"frightened to death." And yet in the face of his diffidence 
1 he made strong friendships and was what would now be 

1 English Lands, Letters, and Kings, 3.303. 
* American Lands and Letters, 2.52-53. 

55 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

called popular. He was one of the most influential members 
of the Linonian Literary Society, an Alpha Delta Phi, a Chi 
Delta Theta, and a member of Skull and Bones. 

In February 1882, a college-mate wrote Mr. Mitchell a 
letter which throws light for us upon the distant college days 
and enables us to see and hear young Donald, the eager 
representative of his society, speaking in behalf of Linonian: 

It was the first or second Saturday of our fall term [1840], or it 
may have been Wednesday, in the afternoon [wrote Mr. J. W. 
Waterman], when all newcomers were summoned to hear a "state- 
ment of facts." ... I went to hear the man who spoke for the 
Linonians. There was a crowd on Chapel Street opposite South 
College. The orator had just commenced. He was a very grace- 
ful young man with a bright eye and brown, wavy hair and pale 
student face; he had a very winning voice and excellent elocution. 
I was completely carried away by him. I thought I had never 
heard oratory before; and as the speaker had no notes, I took it for 
granted that he was speaking extemporaneously, and I wondered 
not so much at the rare gift of speech of the man, as I did at the 
supposed demonstration that three years of college cultivation was 
sure to develop such consummate flowers; and poor little fifteen 
year old freshman that I was, I had no doubt that in the far away 
future of my senior year, I too would be an orator, and be able to 
roll orT the periods in the same graceful and captivating way. 

As I have said, Donald's chief interests in college were 
literary, centring particularly upon oratory and composi- 
tion. To both he applied himself diligently. His contribu- 
tions as a junior to the Yale Literary Magazine probably won 
him election to the 1841 Board of Editors and gave him op- 
portunity to indulge in a way highly attractive to him his 
fondness for original composition. To the semicentennial 
number of the Magazine (February 1886) he contributed an 

56 



5 

A 



f£,| 




W"' /;?§ 



From a sfofcA matfe in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1839. 



THE YALE DAYS 

article on "Old Magazine Days at Yale" from which we may 
quote: 

The book-store of Herrick & Noyes . . . on Chapel Street used 
to be a great loitering place for book-loving students in our " fresh" 
days, forty odd years ago; and I think it was there — sometime in 
the late autumn of 1837 — that I came upon first sight of that Yale 
magazine, from whose brown covers the old gentleman in big cuffs 
and with big flaps to his waistcoat, has been looking out benignly 
upon the world for fifty years. There was a respect for such lit- 
erary monuments in those early and innocent times before as yet 
the virus of athletics had infected the college mind, and when we 
looked with a becoming awe upon the golden spatula of <3>BK and 
the tri-cornered Delta of the "fine writers. " . . . From the edi- 
tors of 1840 — we of 1 841 — received the good will of the concern on 
a certain festive occasion at the Moriarty's of that day, abundant 
manuscripts and — unless I mistake — a bouncing debt. This, how- 
ever, did not forbid a flow of humor at the festivities hinted at, 
and a limited popping of corks — small beer, doubtless. I am con- 
fident that mineral waters had not then come into vogue. 

Of my associates upon the Board only two, I think, are now 
[1886] living: one, the venerable Dr. Yarnall of West Philadelphia, 
beyond us in years and dignity — then, as now — and relieving the 
quiet cares of his Rectory ... by flashes of his early but always 
good-humored sarcasm. Another was the scholarly Professor 
Emerson, with eyes of poetic outlook, living many a year now in 
a quiet collegiate home of the West (Beloit) and enjoying — as of 
old — the classic odors that filter through the pages of Homer and 
of ^Eschylus. 

I cannot leave these old magazine days and memories without 
some notice of that most excellent — but sometimes irascible — old 
gentleman who was in those days, printer to the college; I mean 
Benjamin Hamlen. His printing office (and ours) was upon some 
top floor reached by narrow halls and stairs ... a roomy office 

57 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

with hand-presses only, creaking and groaning at their work, and 
a pleasant outlook over the Green, from the little table where we 
corrected proofs. And the master printer, who presided over cases 
and presses, is as plainly before me as if I saw him only yesterday. 
Tall, gaunt, gray-eyed, with a goodly Roman nose, hair straying 
and scattery, with color of age upon it, face reddened (but rather, 
I think, by the storms of life and the office, than by any alcoholic 
provocatives), having his own imperial notions about punctuation, 
a king of orthography, indulging on occasions in high theologic dis- 
course, watchful of all the galleys, and at a big blunder of a com- 
positor, breaking out somewhiles into discourse that was not theo- 
logic — this was our printer ! 

He lived in a small white house . . . between the Art School 
and the Library. From his door there I used to see him from my 
window . . . striding forth with his scant camlet cloak close 
wrapped about him, his locks straying out from under his well- 
worn silken beaver — braving all weathers; perhaps in the flurries 
of November carrying a bead of dew at the tip of his Roman nose; 
always eager and earnest, and bound straight to the line of his daily 
duties. 

I do not know when he died, or where he is buried; but for me 
his memorial is severely simple and is Latinized 1 — upon the initial 
page of the old Triennial [catalogue]: 

B. L. HAMLEN, TYPOGRAPHO. 

In a little, green, leather-bound volume, bearing upon its 
title-page in his own handwriting the legend "A Memorial of 
College Follies," Mr. Mitchell has preserved his contribu- 
tions to the Yale Literary Magazine. The papers total about 
1 60 pages of solid print — no inconsiderable output for a stu- 
dent busy with the regular work of the curriculum. Among 
them are a series of " Sketches of Real Life, or Scraps from 
a Doctor's Diary," written, according to his own note, "as 
will sufficiently appear, in imitation of Dr. Warren's cele- 

58 



THE YALE DAYS 

bra ted Diary of a Physician" l The note goes on to inform 
us that the admiration which the young writer felt for "the 
graphic force and mastering pathos of those Passages induced 
the attempt." Then there is a sketch, "The Heir of Lich- 
stenstein [sic]" the name undoubtedly suggested by Wil- 
helm HaufFs Lichtenstein ; a series of papers entitled "The 
Mirror, or Tablets of an Idle Man;" essays on James Feni- 
more Cooper, Bulwer, and Sir Walter Scott; a comparison of 
Burke and Newton; and a few pages of hurried "Thoughts 
upon Novel Reading," concerning which another note in- 
forms us that it was "written in the library room of the 
Brothers in Unity and furnished to the printer without re- 
vision." 

Donald's work on the Magazine, thoroughly congenial to 
himself and undoubtedly one of the most valuable features of 
his college course, was not permitted to proceed without 
question. His guardian, Gen. Williams, a business man of 
practical turn and without particular aesthetic or literary 
taste, took the aspiring author severely to task. The letters 
written by Gen. Williams have not been found; fortunately, 
however, two of Donald's exist. Reading these, we may not 
only enjoy Donald's spirited defense of his pursuits, but also 
form a good notion of his reaction to college life and its rela- 
tions to the larger life beyond the confines of the Yale cam- 
pus. Very few of his college letters remain; it is indeed fortu- 
nate that two of such length and content are available: 

Yours of the 30th [he writes from New London, Conn., under 

date of Sabbath eve, May 3d, 1840] at the hands of Elizabeth was 

duly received, and I feel happy in replying to many suggestions 

which you have thrown out in connection with, or rather as corol- 

1 Passages from the Diary of a Late Physician. By Dr. Samuel Warren. Pub- 
lished originally in Blackwood's Magazine, 1832-1837. 

59 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

laries to, the observations upon expenditures; — happy, because 
they are such suggestions as favor the introduction of a defence on 
my part (otherwise uncalled for) of the course in general pursued 
by me since entering college. The subject of expenses I briefly dis- 
miss with a corroboration of the opinion expressed in my last, to 
reduce as far as possible my outlay. In introducing your homily 
upon Education, you seem to have labored under some mistake in 
mentioning "liability to expense in writing for publication." I 
supposed I had made you fully acquainted with the harmlessness 
of the conduct of the Magazine in that point of view, in assuring 
you that no number of the Magazine was printed until sufficient 
monies were received to publish the entire volume. But appar- 
ently I have been mistaken; from what cause I am ignorant — 
surely not from my own misrepresentation. 

You illustrate an injudicious attention to the Magazine by re- 
curring to the self-interested accountant, and to the indigent stu- 
dent; and conclude by enquiring, 'does it complete the education 
of either so well ? ' You have given, if you recollect, the illustra- 
tion without a/&// application. I am therefore in ignorance of the 
exact nature of your views. (Think me not pedantic, I beg; you 
have doubtless omitted something it had been your intention to 
insert.) Nevertheless, from the general tenor of your remarks, I 
imagine you are disposed to object to my application to writing, 
and to elicit (with all deference) a defence on my part, hinted at 
in the opening of this sheet. 

You observe a very fantastic and unnatural distinction between 
the real ends of education and the pursuits of literature in writing. 
Now whatever may be the immediate results of the recitations or 
lessons, nothing can, or need be plainer than that the great and 
only aim of all collegiate education is to acquire a force of intellect 
adequate to command the great mind of society and the world, in 
speaking and writing. Writing, then, is no more diverse from the 
end of a collegiate course than the conduct of that accountant 
who, while in the employ of others, invests from time to time some 

60 



THE YALE DAYS 

capital of his own, that he may combine an exercise of the reflecting 
powers of his mind (sagacity and discretion) with the mechanical 
labor necessarily requisite; it is no more irrelevant to the great goal 
of a scholar's ambition than the labor of that youthful rustic who, 
while bracing his muscles with the humbler organs of husbandry, 
at times places his hand to the plow and upturns that sod which in 
future years is to warm and nurture the germ of his worldly wealth ! 
Indeed, so important, so entire an aim is the power to write and to 
speak well that our rhetorical professor has again and again im- 
pressed it upon us in such terms as these: "The text-books are 
worth nothing to you in comparison with the great ends of a col- 
legiate discipline — power of ruling mind; — they are the mere alpha- 
bet to form the language." So much for the distinction you have 
seen fit to make between education and an application to writing. 
I have dwelt upon it in showing the fallacy of any contradistinc- 
tion, because it would be exceedingly galling to my feelings to 
realize that I had chosen the part of uneducated mind. 

Of what utility, you then ask, are the text-books and an unre- 
mitting attention ? I answer — waiving the consideration that even 
now ^rd of all regular college exercises are confined exclusively 
and fully to writing and speaking and the rules of that rhetoric 
which you are disposed to undervalue — I answer it is to befit the 
mind for more vigorous attainment in after life; but it effects this 
not through a neglect of the pursuit in college — which would be 
but learning the rules of a dance without ever following its mazes — 
but in constant and simultaneous exercise of all those faculties 
which present knowledge in the form of speech and writing. Again 
you ask, is not the exercise prescribed by the regular college au- 
thorities sufficient for practical application? I answer — it is as 
much as they dared expect, though not so much as they could 
wish; and let me check your triumph over my exposition of their 
views, in observing that nearly all the writings in the periodical re- 
ferred to, are nothing more than the regular college exercises re- 
vised and polished for the acceptance of the reading public; and 

61 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

moreover that the Yale Literary Magazine is taken and supported 
zealously by almost every member of the faculty, they believing it 
no less honorable to the literary character of the institution than 
improving to the minds of its conductors. Indeed, it is the foster 
child of their nurture, which we humbly trust shames not its par- 
entage ! It excites a noble sentiment of emulation throughout 
college — is a monthly report to friends of comparative attain- 
ments — calls for vigorous action in the walks precedent to the 
stormy strife upon the great arena of life — in fine, it constitutes the 
columns and the entablature to the great temple of collegiate pur- 
suits — not indispensable to its permanence, but essential to its 
symmetry, its majesty, and its perfection ! 

Would, then, the man at thirty be the gainer from attention to 
such an object? Would the eagle pierce more buoyantly the em- 
pyrean for trying its strength while yet a nursling of the eyrie ? or 
can he hope for strength to soar in face of heaven by merely gorging 
his carrion prey? Think not, then, so objectionably of a course 
both practical and calculated to discipline for future exercise. 
But do you imagine a necessary neglect of other branches ? Noth- 
ing is farther from the truth, so unreal that it is a general truth, 
that he who is most stored with knowledge there acquired is most 
profuse in its exhibition, that he who is best disciplined is most 
active in presenting thought. 

Thus far in answer to your suggestions, and I conclude, trust- 
ing that you will read this letter divesting yourself of prejudice and 
a remembrance of my youthful prejudices; — trusting that you will 
weigh the ideas suggested not as my own ardent, passionate excla- 
mations, but as statements to be submitted to the sober test of rea- 
son; and if they be maimed by a shaft from her quiver, I yield with 
due submission. 

I take this opportunity [he continues in a letter dated July 13th, 
1840, written from New Haven] to acknowledge the receipt of a 
check in the Merchants Bank of New York for $100; — also I thus 

62 



THE YALE DAYS 

soon would reply to yours of the ioth inst., inasmuch as I was con- 
siderably disturbed by its contents. I think, without conceit, that 
few are more disposed than myself at my age to receive and to be 
guided by the advice of friends; and let me assure you that yours 
is treasured in a grateful mind. But at the same time I think that 
you are somewhat deceived relative to my actual regard for matters 
of a trifling, /. e., purely literary nature, and that you are mistaken 
relative to the time expended by me upon the magazine in ques- 
tion — in short, that your fears are in a measure groundless. For 
instance, the very article which has suggested to you, perhaps, the 
kind admonitions offered in your letter was written for a literary 
exercise which I engaged in in common with a great portion of the 
class. Classical studies such as I presume you refer to — languages, 
etc. — are now completed and our attention is directed at present 
to history, astronomy, and some principles of natural philosophy, 
all of which are to be succeeded by those pursuits calculated to 
foster and sustain a power of coping with thought and language ; 
viz., logic, rhetoric, natural theology, and mental philosophy, all 
of which I purpose to pursue with zeal and vigor. 

Relative to the acquirement of practical knowledge, it must be 
considered that college is the last place in the world to attain this 
kind of knowledge amid the pursuit of mathematical demonstra- 
tions and the pleas of Demosthenes 300 years before Christ; yet I 
am free to assert with confidence that there are not four persons in 
my own class whom I would be willing to acknowledge my supe- 
riors in any practical knowledge whatever, owing chiefly to the 
peculiar circumstances into which I have been thrown. Take, for 
instance, the single matter of accounts: slight as my knowledge is, 
I doubt not I better understand its theory and practice than al- 
most any individual with whom I am associated here. I am throw- 
ing myself open to a serious charge of egotism, I see; but neverthe- 
less, let your kind confidence be my apology. I am not insensible, 
I assure you, to the necessity of practical knowledge and (if I may 
so speak) to its steady, vigorous, full application. 

63 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

I am not in love with literature — not rapt into a morbid enthu- 
siasm for mere books and writing; but pursue its more essential 
branches as a means and not as an end — as a means of disciplin- 
ing my mind for vigorous thought — as a means of acquiring 
knowledge — as a means of ability to render that knowledge effec- 
tive in its highest capabilities; and when a profession is before me, 
it is to that and that alone I mean to concentrate my energies — 
if health favor — with untiring application, and if then, despite my 
efforts, I shame my friends from lack of natural endowment, be it 
so, for God "hath made us, and not we ourselves !" 

Meanwhile, be assured your advice and your wishes in all my 
schemes will be kept steadily in view; indeed I am extremely sen- 
sitive to the slightest censure, and hence by its rankling it is al- 
ways sure to effect some good. 

Dropping the more severe manner of an explanation, permit 
[me] to solicit your advice upon my leave a year hence. Law, I 
think upon the whole best suited to my capacities, and my only 
fear is that my strength and health would not sustain me under 
its excessive labor. Now, would a residence on a farm for a year 
or more after leaving college consort with your views of attaining 
practical usefulness? It would give a stock of health and some 
leisure for keeping alive my acquaintance with books. 

Apposite to your remarks is a fact related of Edmund Burke, 
the greatest of English statesmen. He spent his time in youth in 
a haphazard manner, pursuing the bent of his own inclinations; 
"but," says his historian, "let none do likewise unless they are 
first convinced that they possess the genius of Burke." 

... I have some thoughts of soliciting a boarding place at 
Salem with Mr. Goddard for the coming vacation. . . . 

After almost four years of such really strenuous work as 
the old Yale curriculum occasioned, and two years of ener- 
getic and sometimes feverishly hurried writing for the Maga- 
zine, Donald must have come to the delights of the senior 

6 4 



THE YALE DAYS 

vacation with feelings of relief and deep satisfaction. The 
flavors of it he treasured as among his richest possessions: 

That old six weeks' vacation for the seniors which once inter- 
vened between what was called class day and commencement was 
a glorious festal time for those who had finished their courses un- 
conditioned ... six weeks of triumphant idleness and dignity 
[he wrote in 1895]. To have the freedom of those august courts of 
learning (the Atheneum and Lyceum) and no tingling horror of 
the college bell ! The sophomores regarded us seniors with a new 
admiration, and freshmen were transfixed with awe as we strode 
past them on the campus. Then came, too, the victorious forays 
in companies of two or five to Morris Cove or Savin Rock (whose 
single, great shambling hostelry then flanked the cliff), or to Guil- 
ford Point, astonishing the villagers on the way and winning the 
smiles of those alert young women who already scented "Com- 
mencement" in the air. 

The privileges of that last, long vacation gave us also the free- 
dom of the great Tontine tavern, which then dominated with its 
vast hulk, the whole eastern side of the Green; and we strode up 
and down its majestic corridors — fearless of prying monitors or 
tutors — and snuffing with independent air the odors of those fra- 
grant stews which ... in the far away days I speak of mingled 
regalingly with the odors of stables and of blooming house-gardens 
that stretched all the way down to the banks of the canal. 

At last came the day of graduation, August 18th, 1841. 
It is worth our while to look at one of those long-gone com- 
mencements through Mr. Mitchell's eyes: 

All the ministers and the deacons in the near towns put on 
clean collars and their best toggery for commencement day. The 
old railing about the Green was a hitching place for half its circuit. 
Old ladies living along the out-of-town roads plotted for the return 
of their best bombazines from the mantua makers for the com- 

65 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

mencement scrimmage. The seniors coming back from that "lark'* 
of a six weeks' vacation . . . sun-browned and chirrupy, beamed 
with a contagious joyousness; the aunts and cousins and sweet- 
hearts of these last, and of the new come " fresh," flooded all the 
walks with flashing cambrics and cheeriness. Even before the 
great procession — headed by the sheriff of the county, and with 
constables for marshals — had meandered its way down from the 
Lyceum doorstep to the front of Centre Church, the galleries were 
packed — the windows all open, showing piles of muslin and flutter- 
ing fans, while the whole interior air of the temple was heavy with 
the incense of pinks, fennel, new prunella shoes, and late summer 
flowers. 

The last year's freshmen (we had begun even then to call our- 
selves sophomores) following immediately after the constabulary, 
and dividing ranks at the door, posted their strongest men — the 
class "bully" foremost — to hold back the surging crowd, which, 
when the dignitaries — governors, senators, doctors — had wriggled 
through and were installed upon their lifted rostrum, flowed in 
with a swift tide and made the whole church a sea of heads. 

Among the dignitaries in the times I best remember, the curi- 
ous might have pointed out the tall, spare figure of Gov. Ellsworth, 
perhaps flanked by ex-Gov. Edwards, and Judge Daggett, serene 
in his top boots, and the antique head of Dr. Chapin, and Senator 
Smith, or mayhap Gen. Kimberly (who loved his own chafing dish 
at the Tontine tables), and the Puritan dignity of Rev. Noah 
Porter [father of the Noah who became president of Yale], and, not 
least regarded by reason of the auctoritatem meam with which he 
was invested, the kindly President of the College, Dr. Day. He 
was not a man showing at his best in fetes . . . nor yet in his 
Algebra, or Treatise on the Will; but in the quiet of his own North 
College room, when he beamed a benignant pardon upon some 
offending student. 

Orations, dissertations, "sacred music," boomed in the pent 
air where fans were all a-flutter. Possibly some dramatic fragment 

66 



THE YALE DAYS 

like Salathiel) by John Brocklesby, varied the monotone in black. 
In the "sacred music" I think there may have been a faint "flute" 
note — of violins, I am not so sure — but the bass-viol was, I think, 
wrested from the grip of Satan at an earlier period than its smaller 
and saucier sister. There was an interlude at noon, and a breaking 
of cold meats, at which all the hungry dominies of near towns re- 
galed themselves. 

Then came again — as the sun turned its sky journey and smote 
hotly from the west — a new booming of the music, a livelier flut- 
tering of the fans, and a new threshing of such old truisms as 
"Truth is mighty and will prevail !" The dignitaries wax hot and 
weary, and are more than ready for the final benediction which 
follows upon the distribution of the honors ad primum gradum. 
Then a last burst of irregular music swells again; the fans cease 
their flutter; the crowd eddies into slow, murmurous currents that 
flow down the aisles and out into the breezy air of . . . afternoon. 

In the face of all handicaps the young man had acquitted 
himself well during the four years, and was chosen by his 
class to deliver the valedictory oration. The subject of his 
address was The Dignity of Learning. When he arose to 
pronounce the oration, July 7th, 1841, he was almost too 
ill and weak to stand. His pale, handsome face was never 
forgotten by those who were present, nor the affecting man- 
ner with which he turned to the white-haired President Day 
to bid farewell to him and to the faculty. The disease which 
had already scourged his family had laid strong hold upon 
Donald. 

The Dignity of Learning, an oration written and pro- 
nounced by a young man just turned of nineteen, may well 
be read and pondered by American college seniors of the 
present. It bears witness to the fact that Donald had read 
widely, had assimilated his reading, had formulated definite 

67 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

convictions upon important questions, and acquired the 
ability to express those convictions in clear and compelling 
English. The substance of the oration is worthy of preser- 
vation here: 

What is the worth of learning [he asks at the outset], that we 
have spent the flower of our life in its acquisition? Wherein con- 
sists its true dignity, and how shall it be best maintained in the 
field now in reality before us? . . . [Its true dignity consists] in 
an independence of all save truth; in a consistency regulated only 
by the same severe standard, and in a strict subordination to mo- 
rality. When learning concedes a dependence on any other sover- 
eign than truth, it is no longer learning, but only a gross debase- 
ment of its title. . . . The dignity of American learning must rest 
in a great measure on its restraint and modification of public senti- 
ment. . . . Public opinion in America needs the constant, effi- 
cient, renovating action of learning, in view of her political insti- 
tutions. . . . 

Democrat is becoming the by- word for political distinction; 
and he who dares to speak in disrespect of the Democracy is a 
libeler of his country's fame. But while I yet stand within this 
sacred nursery of truth, I dare to say, and say proudly too, that 
our government is not a democracy. The representative system 
is the glory of our institutions; — a system which, while it designates 
our legislators as the instruments of power, marks them out none 
the less surely as the men possessed of that intellectual ability 
which can control the functions of a great government. And it is 
the submission of the people to the wisdom of their superiors 
that constitutes the grand conservative principle of our institu- 
tions; and the bare fact that such submission is voluntary consti- 
tutes our freedom. ... It is by no means too much to say that 
educated mind is far from holding to itself in our country that 
independence and firmness of which as the guardian of truth it 
should be proud. It is yielding too much to the bias of popular 

68 



THE YALE DAYS 

sentiment, nor dares resist manfully the sweep of public opin- 
ion. . . . Instead of guiding sentiment by the force of a truth- 
seeking mind, learning too often waits the flow of opinion and 
passes undisturbed down its lulling tides; not from scorn of what 
the truth may be, but from greater love of public regard; and as it 
stoops to popular caprice, it must like Galileo rise with a whispered 
condemnation of the act. It is no less lamentable than true that 
popularity is the general ground of eminence in America. 

. . . The dignity of learning is not here [in America] to be 
maintained by newness, or by strange conceits, but by a correct 
and chastened guidance, by more reverence and deeper study of 
what has gone before, rather than [by] hasty attempts to emulate. 
The body of our letters for a long time to come cannot differ mate- 
rially from those of Britain. The similarity of our manners and 
language forbid. Characters and scenes can never make a differ- 
ence while principles and actions are the same. . . . The nice 
distinctions in our political and social organizations must remain 
long unchronicled in characteristic verse. In truth, the only real 
nationality of American literature is, I believe, to consist only in 
its superiority to every other; superiority not so much in the con- 
ventionalities of form and the polish of numbers, as in its grasp 
and subordination to morality. ... It must sustain its dignity 
only in laying aright the basis of a literature of power and purity. 
I say in laying the basis, for we are not ready for the superstructure 
of elegant letters. . . . The pride and the strength of America — 
her people — can by no means yet in the mass appreciate the ele- 
gancies of letters. . . . Until, then, the mass of society shall 
have chastened their tastes . . . where can we look for the sup- 
port of a native elegant literature? And it has been the failure of 
what constitutes the floating literary capital of our day that it has 
been established on no learning whatever and is of superficial and 
precocious growth. Classic learning must modify and should 
chastise American letters. It is a wise and a holy principle of our 
nature — that cheerful sufferance of the wisdom of the past which 

6 9 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

garners the treasures of its thought. Did we live in Homer's day 
we might attune our unlearned faculties to the habit of a sounding 
song; but like Virgil we must know somewhat before we tell the 
story of a Trojan wanderer, or rival his agricultural verse. And 
he who without learning, writes with mercenary views to supply 
the diseased appetites of myriads, beggars our growing literature. 
And we who have for years been professedly arraying ourselves 
in an Attic garb, let us not forsake the Blue-eyed Queen of letters 
to lay our offerings at the feet of the Ephesian Diana. 

. . . [I]n its connection with literature, it is essential to the 
dignity of American learning that its efforts be subordinated to 
true morality. . . . When intellect becomes a pander to sensual 
appetite, the order of our system is subverted and man brutal- 
izes every faculty of a nobler nature. Learning, so far from the 
maintenance of its true elevation, debases itself, and ignorance may 
triumph in the possession of nobler motives and higher hopes. In 
anticipating the progress of correct principle, and the subordina- 
tion of our letters, as a ground of their excellence, to morality, a 
question arises of speculative curiosity no less than [of] real inter- 
est — whether an elegant literature can be so inwoven with mo- 
rality as to make it no less charming to a refined intellect than to 
a pure heart? . . . And if this union between all that is pure in 
morals and all that is elegant in letters is ever to take place, 
where is the land and where the people who are to aid in the con- 
summation before our own ? . . . And what purpose in the world 
more noble, than that learning should seek a higher dignity by a 
more intimate alliance with morality, and the blessed union of 
both exalt our country and consummate the worth of our Amer- 
ican character? ... 

But do not suppose that in my assertion of the dignity of learn- 
ing, and its elevating pursuits, I overlook its bearings upon or con- 
nection with common mind. . . . The farmer has not fed us, 
the mechanic has not sheltered, in the expectancy of receiving 
nothing at our hands. And as we sever the bond of union to-day, 

70 



THE YALE DAYS 

it is this sentiment in furtherance of which I would utter my 
heartiest God speed you — live for your fellow-men. . . . 

Permit me to urge upon you farther, in concluding, the benefit 
of carrying somewhat of the warmth of early feeling into the active 
duties of life. Let a young heart ever burn in your breasts; it 
cannot mislead a mature mind. . . . 

Yale left upon Mr. Mitchell a strong impress. Knowing 
well both the strength and the weaknesses of his alma mater, 
he came to a right appraisal of both, and cherished an intelli- 
gent yet unwavering love for the institution. Readers of 
his American Lands and Letters cannot have failed to notice 
how frequently the name of Yale occurs therein; how often, 
in truth, the author goes out of his way to make mention of 
Yale. It is probably true that he was never entirely satisfied 
with Yale's achievement in literature. He revered her, to 
be sure, as a "steady old nurse 1 of sound letters;" neverthe- 
less, he ventured to hope that she might come to put more of 
enthusiasm into her cherishment of the written word. An 
interesting pencil note dating from about 1897 must not be 
omitted here: 

I have sometimes thought that Willis' falling away from 
stricter Presbyterianism and disappointing the expectations of 
those who had admired his Scripture pieces, had something to do 
with Yale's general, subsequent discredit of literature and of its 
study — I mean strictly belles-lettres study. Certain it is Yale has 
never put its foot-ball relish into letters or followers of letters ! 
All that related to rhetoric or composition in my day was most 
shabbily pursued or methodized; nor, indeed, has Yale ever put 
its foot strongly in that direction. The President (Stiles) who 
wrote most perhaps, was credulous and sophomoric — not of a cast 
to kindle great warmth letterward ! Dwight was more so, and 

1 American Lands and Letters, 1.199. 
71 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

under his influence we have Percival, Humphreys, Barlow, and 
Trumbull. Then came Jeremiah Day, who wrote the Algebra and 
On the Will y not either violently stimulative of poetry. Larned, 
who was Professor of Literature, was a nemo, caught out of a 
country pulpit and set there. Then came Woolsey: he indeed had 
literary ability and tastes; he made reforms. He set some wheels 
a-turning, and stimulated me more than any college man I re- 
member toward belles-lettres. Porter followed: he had good ap- 
preciation, but strong faith in old Puritan ways of education — 
philosophy and metaphysics; Dr. Edwards was as his sun in the 
heavens. So the literary tendency at Yale had to go exploratively 
through metaphysic morasses before there came any emergence 
into blossom; and the consequence was — there was very little 
blossoming. Few people sat up nights in Porter's day to read 
poetry, or to write it. 

There can be little doubt that among his teachers, Pro- 
fessor Woolsey left the deepest impress for good upon him, 
and that not alone in one way. Another of his random notes 
mentions the "overspill of youthful enthusiasms during re- 
vival days at Yale." On his own part, it seems that Donald 
had a natural "hesitancy about declaratory action — about 
the grand step of joining church." This hesitancy, he af- 
firms, was "quickened by the calm utterance of that thought- 
ful, scholarly Christian, the late President Woolsey: 'Be sure 
of yourself. Don't engage for a life on the strength of a 
spasm of hopefulness and resolve/" The calm thoughtful- 
ness of Theodore Woolsey came to be a leading characteristic 
of Mr. Mitchell's own life. 

It must have been with more of gloom than of joy that 
the young Bachelor of Arts left his college home. He had 
indeed brought to honorable completion a difficult task and 
had tasted the joy of achievement. His home circle, how- 

72 



THE YALE DAYS 



ever, had been sorely smitten, his sister Elizabeth was near 
death, and he himself alarmingly weak and ill. He returned 
to the farm-home of Mary Goddard at Elmgrove convinced 
that he had at most only a few years to live. 



13 



IV 

ON THE FARM 

You know that I had learned to use the sickle on our farm- 
land in the valley, before I went away; and could bind up the ears 
at harvest with the stoutest of my men. — Fresh Gleanings , xvii. 

There is no manner of work done upon a New England farm to 
which some day I have not put my hand — whether it be chopping 
wood, laying wall, sodding a coal-pit, cradling oats, weeding corn, 
shearing sheep, or sowing turnips. — Out-of-Town Places, 25. 

In that central western part of New London County, 
Connecticut, which borders upon the county of Middlesex, 
lies the township of Salem. Within its confines are the 
farmlands which once belonged to the Shaw, Mumford, and 
Woodbridge families — hundreds of acres of the stony up- 
land and meadow so characteristic of Connecticut. It is a 
beautiful region — now, as then, lying remote from the main 
currents of life, and keeping its secrets for those who can 
find, and understand, and enter into them. There flow lazy- 
streams amid dreamful meadows and under the shadows of 
wooded hillsides; while on the eastern margin lie silent lakes. 

The main features of its landscape have found fitting 
enshrinement in the pages of the Reveries and Dream Life y 
where Mr. Mitchell has written of the wild stream — large 
enough to make a river for English landscape — running 
through the valley of Elmgrove and winding between rich 
banks, where in summer-time the swallows build their nests 
and brood. Following his guidance, we may see the tall 

74 



ON THE FARM 

elms rising here and there along the margin, with their up- 
lifted arms and leafy spray throwing great patches of shade 
upon the meadow, and the old lion-like oaks where the 
meadow soil hardens into rolling upland fastening to the 
ground with their ridgy roots, and with their gray, scraggy 
limbs making delicious shelter. There are banks which roll 
up swiftly into sloping hills covered with groves of oaks, and 
green pasturelands dotted with mossy oaks. There, too, is 
a wide swampwood which in the autumn-time is covered 
with a scarlet sheet blotched here and there by the dark 
crimson stains of the ash-tops. 1 Changed in some particu- 
lars since 1 840, the township retains the essential features of 
those early days. 

In the midst of this township and this valley, all within 
hailing distance of one another, are two ancestral home- 
steads and a modest country cottage. That one in the valley 
is Elmgrove, the old Mumford mansion, dating from about 
1 769-1 770; that one just across the valley on a southern 
slope is the Woodbridge house, built in 1791-1792 as a home 
for the youthful Nathaniel Shaw Woodbridge and his newly 
wedded, equally youthful wife, Elizabeth Mumford. To the 
east, and just below the ridge on which stands the Wood- 
bridge house, is the little cottage which, as the "quiet farm 
house" of the Reveries, is sure of enduring fame. When the 
final settlement of his mother's estate was made, Donald 
inherited the "quiet farm house" and about 400 acres of 
adjoining land. 

It was to this remote and delightsome region that he 
came after his graduation. His cousin, Mary Perkins, now 
the wife of Mr. Levi H. Goddard, was living in the Elmgrove 
house, and it was with her that he made his home. A tenant- 

t ' See Reveries, 141-148; Dream Life, 111-117. 

75 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

farmer occupied the cottage and cultivated the inherited 
acres. Donald set himself at once to the general supervision 
of his farm and, as strength permitted and inclination di- 
rected, entered actively into all the agricultural labors. 
Agriculture at that period — especially in the remote dis- 
tricts of Connecticut — was in a primitive state, and farmers 
did not listen with approval to what they considered the 
new-fangled notions of book- farmers. The youthful pro- 
prietor had ample opportunity to study the effects of stolid 
ignorance and to catch inspiration for a betterment of con- 
ditions. 1 

The actual farm work he varied with hunting, fishing, 
reading, drawing, driving, and strolling. Twelve-mile drives 
across country to Norwich to market farm products com- 
bined business with pleasure. So far as possible he lived an 
open-air life, spending whole days under the shades of the 
loved trees, "inviting his soul," building dream-castles whose 
foundations were not yet seen of men. It was a dual life. 
On the one hand, it was giving the young graduate a direct 
experience of the land, teaching him the limitations and the 
possibilities — the advantages and the disadvantages — of 
farming. On the other, it was affording him a quiet season 
of growth. Away from the world, living a life of essential 
solitude, alone with books and his own thoughts, absorbing 
through every sense the beauties of earth and sky, he was 
silently growing the first-fruits of his soul and in quietude 
ripening them to the harvest. 

It was at no time of his life a habit to keep an extended 
private diary. Now and then, however, for limited periods, 
he made a few entries; and there remains a note-book in 
which, under the head of "Jottings Down in the Country," 

1 See the chapter, "An Old-Style Farm," in Out-oj-Town Places, 3-26. 

76 



ON THE FARM 

he has written the record of four August days. Evidently 
tiring of the practice, he did not continue beyond the fourth 
entry. These jottings are delightfully illuminating. Here, 
in his own words, we may read the story of the half-idle, 
half-busy life he was leading. Here we may follow the 
delicious nothings, the whimsical reasonings, the occasions 
of merriment, the worth-while readings, the reflections on 
taste, which were filling his days: 

Aug. 26th, 1 841. This day pleasant. Practiced shooting in 
the morning. Afternoon strolled away with my gun, and brought 
back a robin and a fine, fat hen-partridge; which last I brought 
down from the wing, being the second bird I ever killed thus. 
Some compunctions about the cruelty of bird-killing, but find them 
marvellously absorbed in the pleasure of bringing down fine game 
at a good shooting distance. Query: How know we but it af- 
fords inferior animals delight to die? So strange a proposition I 
dare hardly write down without summing up the reflections that 
suggest it to my mind. 1st. Nothing in Nature leads us to sup- 
pose the negative of the proposition, but an analogy from our 
finely wrought constitutions to those of a humbler and infinitely 
less complicated structure. Farther, it is from an analogy be- 
tween matter imbued with thinking properties: the residence of a 
soul, and mere animated matter. Again, the analogy is imperfect 
from the fact that it is between reasonable creatures, capable of 
qualifying pain to almost any degree by imagination, and creatures 
utterly destitute of this faculty. Again, how far pain pertains to 
our animal structure exclusively, rather than the amalgamation of 
body and mind, is a matter resting only upon the very feeble 
analogy of apparent suffering in brutes; and this apparent suffering 
is deduced from the violent throes and muscular contortions of 
animals when injured, of which throes and contortions, however, a 
dead body is susceptible under galvanic influences, and of that 
dead body pain cannot surely be predicated. 

77 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

2d. Supposing the analogy good, which, after all, but creates 
violent probability, is there not enough to combat that violent 
probability in the known justice and benevolence of the Deity, 
who in creating animals for much enjoyment should counter- 
balance their sum of enjoyment by a painfully agonizing death? 

But supposing 3d, that the last hypothesis is feebly sustained, 
am I not at liberty to support the proposition asserted, in justifi- 
cation of my sporting propensity, by the fact that a gunshot wound, 
speedily terminating the existence of fowls, does afford pleasure, 
when compared with the throes of natural disease, the imbecility 
and consequent starvation of age, or yet the jaws of rapacious 
animals? 

But again, and in disregard of the proposition unfolded under 
the foregoing remarks; even assuming that gaming does occasion 
intense suffering, though of course no more than the slaughter of 
domestic fowls, what then ? Shall the infliction of pain prevent 
my consuming animal food? The question applies with equal 
force to the slaughter of beeves or other marketable products, and 
of wild game. Unless I am told the one is necessary, the other 
not. But where is this question of necessity to end ? Forswear 
the catching of mackerel, and satisfy hunger with additional 
quantities of cod, or if [it is] not to be obtained, the flesh of the 
most ordinary market food; deny the appetite every delicacy of 
the sea and the air, and shrive it with the commoner products of 
nature: such must be the conclusion of those who contend against 
so called unnecessary cruelty. 

But birds are of the beauties of nature, the orchestra of our 
planet, singing to the Power that made them. Such sentiments 
are sweet and holy poetry, but impartial reasoning lays them by, 
or with equal effect predicates the same delightful thoughts of the 
playful lamb frolicking on sun-painted hills, or silver-scaled fish 
leaping in the glad waters and ever making the sea to murmur a 
tribute of praise to the God that holds it in his hand. 

So much for bird-killing. Yet to see the poor victim of a sports- 

78 



ON THE FARM 

man's aim, with its death wound, wheeling round and round in 
smaller and smaller circles, and fluttering and fluttering, then fall- 
ing to gasp and die — Oh, it is sad; and it is sad to see the fair 
ones of earth's creation, be they soulless or immortal, failing with 
death's dart plunged to the quick — fainting and dying; and it is 
sad to see Time shooting down young hours and bright days and 
weeks, and they all dying; and it is sad to see one's budding years 
shot down. Ah, Time is a rare sportsman, and Death carries his 
game-bag ! 

Howbeit, my hen-partridge, under the good cookage of a Mis- 
tress of the Art, was pronounced a rare meal; and the poor robin, 
had he lived in Virgil's time, might be now tuning his seraph 
throat in Elysian fields. Tired with tramping, night came grate- 
fully, as he always does in country homes, and gratefully I lay 
myself in his dark arms. 

Aug. 27th. Rain — rain — rain — a fine day for trout; but my 
garments are hardly weather-proof, and my lines are all of the 
plain honest, brown-faced hemp which the perch nor the pike quar- 
rel with, though they struggle hard with it; but the coy swimmer 
of the brook passes by. Silk, green as his own bright streams, and 
tiny as the tissue of his fin, entices most the king of the water-game. 

Elmgrove was thrown into a state of wonder this morning by 
the announcement from the stable that Bess, the black sow, had 
borne into the world a litter of six black pigs, sleek and modest as 
their dam. Such events always by some strange association lead 
me into a train of sad reflections upon the emptiness of worldly 
hopes, and the vexatious cares which buffet us whichever way we 
turn. I gave them to the family at dinner in an anapestic ode. 
For a while they looked serious, almost alarmed; but when I 
smiled in concluding, it proved the spark for firing a magazine of 
hilarity, and though a good laugher myself, I was fairly put to the 
blush. 

Noon and night both came round to-day with rain unabated, 
and if those sharp and heavy fires of Junius upon the poor Duke of 

79 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

Grafton hadn't waked me up as if I were on a fox track, I should 
have written this down in my journal, as I do sometimes, A Dull 
Day. I wonder what politicians of the day think of Junius ? To 
my fancy there is not a book in the whole range of letters, unless 
it be some of Burke's marvellous production — "Letters on the 
Regicide Peace," or "To a Noble Lord" — which would so well fit 
a man to stand in that great hall upon the hill at Washington, and 
test with consummate art every device offered for the adoption of 
the nation. And not only would they qualify to test, but to de- 
nounce with bolts of argumentation that would not be withstood; 
or as the case might be, uphold with a giant grasp till the puny 
athletce of the modern school of politics were wearied in their 
efforts to pull down. 

We country people do sometimes wonder whether the legislators 
at the Capitol, save some few, are men tried in all the changeful 
aptitudes of government, and learned in its throng of concentric 
revolution; whether they have deeply studied the past and the 
present, and balance them daily on their votes; whether the great 
political reformers of every age have their place in their minds and 
shed their light on the paths of Republican experiment; whether 
they have ever digested in their own minds the great system of 

American law? On such an inquiry, I could hardly sleep 

soundly, were it not for the music of incessant water-drops patter- 
ing on roof and window. 

Aug. 28th. Rain still, fine, penetrating, grass-growing rain. 
It occurred to me to-day as I was looking over the wide, green 
meadow stretching down before the winds and the clouds, that no 
painter has ever attempted a portraiture of Nature in one of her 
gayest and liveliest frolics — a hard rain. And really it would be a 
noble triumph of art, to trickle the rain drops from the canvas foli- 
age, and dimple the pool with the laughing eddies. 1 Farming on 
such a day is carried on with vigor by Nature, but with a slack 

1 Readers of Mr. Mitchell's works will recognize this as the germ of the passage, 
"A Picture of Rain," in Wet Days at Edgewood, 103. 

80 



ON THE FARM 

hand by man. Still, the ingenious and the diligent find much in 
a storm to be grateful for aside from the watering of earth's 
products. No properly educated farmer should be without his 
mechanic implements and his mechanical ability. And with these 
he will find a pleasure equal to any the work of his hands af- 
fords in examining his churn, his plow, his harrow, etc. ; or, if like 
myself, he occasionally strolls off with his gun or his rod, the one 
is to be cleaned and oiled, the other to be set in order. Strange — 
strange — must be the pleasure of a closed-up city life — its avenues 
thronged with miserable debauchees, and its reality commuted for 
gain ! When will man learn that in his thirst for wealth he forgets 
its object; when will the miserly farmer (for we have them) change 
meagerness for beauty; when will taste supplant niggardness; 
when will he believe that the cool of a rich shade is worth more to 
his soul than the paltry price which the sun-nurtured herbage adds 
to his store ? When will he build up among these glens of old Con- 
necticut, and on her oak-clad uplands, rich specimens of a taste re- 
fined by the study of Vitruvius; and when will a Cato teach, before 
the maxims of ancestral economy? Gaunt, cheerless piles of 
building of a two-story height proclaim its owner "forehanded," 
when a day's study, and pleasant hours of relaxation over pages of 
British taste, would have placed in the forsaken grove of his 
"sheep-pasture" a cottage of rural beauty, amply large for his 
wants, and adorned with that simple elegance that proclaims 
its owner a man of soul ! Dear to my heart are the thatched 
roofs of England's better days, the diamond window, the oaken 
wainscoting, the loops for the match-lock, the "varnished clock," 
the "sanded floor," the huge arm-chair; aye, even the gable ends 
and the stacks of stout chimneys of Dutch inheritance are far more 
sightly than the shameless concubinage of lumber and brick and 
plaster that hide the families of too many of our Connecticut hus- 
bandry. This is not poetry. I care not if these notions be sub- 
jected to the Procrustean bed of modern economy. Tell me, man 
of a one hundred, a two hundred, or five hundred acre farm, would 

81 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

it have cost you more to build in place of your mammoth house 
with its parlors and parlor chambers vacant and noiseless save the 
chirpings of some lost crickets, and the weekly visitings of your 
housewife, brushing in stockinged feet the dust from their lintels; 
would it have cost you more to have bestowed your earnings on a 
tasteful cottage ever gleeful from cellar to gable end with the 
sounds of domestic joy? In place of your carpetless and comfort- 
less chambers to have made rich with bodily comforts and much 
food for the mind some little nook above the noisy nursery of the 
neatly shaded cottage ? Away, away, say we who think 

"the rocks and whispering trees 
Do still perform mysterious offices; " 

away with that utilitarian spirit which overlooks the highest 
utility — the culture of man's immortal part — which would by ex- 
ample rear children to a distaste for beauty and invest their grow- 
ing minds in a garb meager as my neighbor's smock frock, and 
stinted as the goose-fed herbage by his door. 

Aug. 29th. Sunday is always more welcome in the country 
than elsewhere, and I dare not anima mea in cognita say entirely 
welcome; and why should this be so? 

These jottings shall be supplemented by a brief para- 
graph from one of his magazine articles which dates from 
this same period: 

The smaller fish . . . abound [in New England waters] and, 
together with the perch and pike, conspire to make agreeable an 
afternoon's idlesse on the bosom of one of those fairy lakes which, 
though they be not christened with the romantic euphony of 
Lochs Tay, Craig, Ness, and Awe^ possess equal charms within 
and around, and are scattered like pearl-drops all over the surface 
of New England. On an August day when every element was 
sleeping, the trees not breaking their picturesque line upon the sky 
by the faintest motion — the water placid — nothing stirring save 

82 



ON THE FARM 

the summer bird peeping and leaping by the shore, and the gauze- 
winged fly — 

Tbv \d\ov a \a\6eacra, rbv evirrepov a Trrepoeacraj 
Tbv %evov a i~€Lva } rbv Bepivbv Oepivd l — 

on such a morning, ere yet it was fairly broke into the sky, have 
we paddled a rolling canoe into the center of one of these same fairy 
water-spots and angled the live-long day with no companions but 
the tall hills climbing round and the old gray tree trunks stretching 
through their dark and heavy foliage, and we wished no better. 
Though nothing save the minnow and roach played about our 
hook till night, yet we found it withal "a rest to the mind, a cheerer 
of spirits, a diverter of sadness, a calmer of unquiet thoughts, a 
moderator of passions, a procurer of contentedness." 2 

All the while he was diligently following his literary pur- 
suits, and his studies of the practical and aesthetic branches 
of agriculture. Between June 1842 and January 1844, he 
contributed a total of sixty-one pages to the Knickerbocker 
Magazine, the North American Review, and the New Eng- 
lander. The current magazines and the new books found 
their way to his country residence. It was in the summer 
of 1843 t ^ lat ne secured the recently issued American edition 
of Sketches by Boz, the first of Dickens's works to come into 
his hands. He kept in close touch with the valuable writings 
of A. J. Downing, a pioneer advocate of landscape-gardening 
and rural architecture in America. On the 5th of September 
1842, he began an "Index of Agriculture: being notes from 
best authorities on the improvement of soils, crops, and cat- 

1 This passage from Evenus (Anthologies Palatina, 9.122), always a favorite 
with Mr. Mitchell, he rendered thus (about 1840): 

Fellow prattlers, winged both, both visitants together, 

The summer bird, the summer fly, both fond of summer weather. 

8 North American Review (October 1842), 370-371. 

83 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

tie, together with general information useful to the land- 
holder," placing upon its title-page an echo of his recent 
classical studies, adapted to suit his own humor: 

Quid faciat laetas segetes, quo sidere terram 
Vertere . . . 

Conveniat, quae cura bourn, qui cultus habendo 
Sit pecori, atquae porcis quanta experentia parcis, 
Hinc disc ere incipiam. . . . * 

In 1843 the New York State Agricultural Society awarded 
him a silver medal for prize plans of farm-buildings. This 
first trophy of his agricultural studies and his self-taught 
draftsmanship he cherished with peculiar affection, regard- 
ing it with much more satisfaction and pleasure than he re- 
garded later and larger achievement. 

Meanwhile, in a manner which he himself did not perhaps 
entirely understand, the spell of the countryside was grow- 
ing upon him. His natural shyness was deepening, his love 
of solitude was changing him into something of a recluse. 
A seeming inertia was holding him. All this the keen eye 
of Gen. Williams saw. Without consulting his ward, the 
businesslike guardian entered into negotiations with Mr. 
Joel W. White, newly appointed consul to Liverpool, and 
secured for Donald a secretaryship in the consular office. 
With characteristic abruptness, the matter was broached. 
"Donald," said Gen. Williams, "I have been observing you 
carefully the last few months, and I regret to say that you 
are becoming too fond of your isolated life. You are stag- 

1 Virgil, Georgic, 1.1-5; as rendered by Arthur S. Way: 

What maketh the harvest's golden laughter, what star-clusters guide 
The yeoman for turning the furrow, for wedding the elm to his bride, 
All rearing of cattle, all tending of flocks, all mysteries 
By old experience taught of the treasure-hoarding bees — 
These shall be theme of my song. 

84 



ON THE FARM 

nating. You are wasting your abilities on that inland farm. 
I have secured for you a position with Mr. White, our consul 
to Liverpool, and have engaged your passage to England. 
You are to go to-morrow to Norwich to begin arrangements 
for your journey/ ' 

Just what Donald replied is not known, but we do have 
his own later account of the decision made. Just as he was 
dreaming of how the old farm might be stirred into new life, 
"there came," he wrote, "a flattering invitation to change 
the scene of labor and of observation, a single night only 
being given for decision. I remember the night as if only 
this morning's sun broke it, and kindled it into day. One 
way, the brooks, the oaks, the crops, the memories, the 
homely hopes lured me; the other way I saw splendid and 
enticing phantasmagoria — London Bridge, St. Paul's, Prince 
Hal, Fleet Street, Bolt Court, Kenilworth, wild ruins. Next 
morning I gave the key of the corn-crib to the foreman and 
bade the farm-land adieu." * 

In after years Mr. Mitchell used to tell his children that 
had it not been for Gen. Williams he might have settled down 
to a quiet life of farming and his whole career have been 
quite other than it was. He was always grateful that his 
old guardian had pricked him into action. With the excep- 
tion of two long drives — one to Hartford, Connecticut, the 
other to Putney, Vermont — he had during three years 
scarcely stirred beyond the near limits of his Salem farm. 
He was now sufficiently strong to travel without discomfort. 
On the 1 6th day of October 1844, he sailed from Boston on 
the steamship Caledonia for Liverpool. 

1 Out-of-Town Places, 24-25. 



85 



EUROPE 

Yet is it useless — altogether useless — the effort to make 

words paint the passions that blaze in a man's heart as he wanders 
for the first time over the glorious old highways of Europe ! — Fresh 
Gleanings, xvii. 

A man does not know England, or English landscape, or English 
country feeling, until he has broken away from railways, from 
cities, from towns, and clambered over stiles and lost himself in 
the fields. — My Farm of Edgewood, 317. 

On the 3d of October 1844, in company with the ever- 
faithful Mary Goddard, Donald was driving along the old 
Essex turnpike on his way to Norwich to complete arrange- 
ments for his sailing. The two cousins talked much of 
this sudden change in his quiet life, and speculated after the 
fashion of young people on what the future might hold in 
store. As he passed along the quiet country road on that 
golden October morning his mind was busy with memories 
which even the anticipations of foreign travel could not en- 
tirely suppress. He must have recalled that other morning 
fourteen years before when he and his father were journey- 
ing to the Ellington school, and there must have come a train 
of sad reflections upon that "inscrutable Providence" which 
had wrought such changes in the family circle since then. 
At the very beginning of his Salem residence Elizabeth had 
died at the age of seventeen. Lucretia, his only remaining 
sister, married now and living in West Springfield, Massa- 
chusetts, was failing in health, and awaiting with quiet dig- 

86 



EUROPE 

nity the death which she and her friends believed to be near 
and certain. The two brothers — Louis, eighteen, and Al- 
fred, twelve years old — under the guardianship of Gen. 
Williams were continuing their school work and gathering 
some little fund of business knowledge. So far as family 
affairs were concerned, Donald felt free to go. Undoubtedly 
there came to him some vague thoughts that henceforward 
his life would be different; it is not likely that he realized 
how complete was to be the break with the old days, how 
enlarging the experiences which awaited him. 

In the early forties a trip to Europe was not the cus- 
tomary and easy thing that it is to-day. For the great ma- 
jority of Americans the "Old Country" was still a far-away 
region, sufficiently unknown to be a land of interest and won- 
der, from which travel letters were eagerly read. Donald 
was among the pioneers of those young Americans who, fired 
by the descriptions of Washington Irving, enthusiastically 
followed the trails of adventure and romance which Europe 
then offered. It is interesting to remember that only three 
months before, on July ist, 1844, Bayard Taylor had sailed 
on the packet-ship Oxford for Liverpool to begin his Euro- 
pean wanderings, and that he returned to America on the 
ist of June 1846, three months before Donald. The paths 
of the two travellers often crossed, and in 1846, immediately 
upon its publication, Donald bought the two paper-bound 
volumes of the first edition of Taylor's Views A-foot ; but it 
was not until several years later at the Century Club in New 
York City that they met and became warm friends. 

Most of the frequent and long letters which Donald wrote 
to Gen. Williams and Mary Goddard have been preserved. 
In addition there are the five little note-books, or travel 
diaries, by means of which we are enabled to follow every 

87 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

step of his journeying. Much of this chapter, therefore, 
will be in the traveller's own words: 

We are at length in England [runs his first letter from Liverpool 
to Gen. Williams under date of 30th October 1844]. For the pas- 
sage has been a long one — long for me, longer for Mr. White who 
has been sick nearly the whole passage. I had no positive sick- 
ness; but suffered from tedium, from damp, from our uneasy mo- 
tion, from a thousand offensive smells and sights, and the general 
dullness which seemed to pervade the whole ship's company. At 
Halifax we were all in good spirits, having enjoyed the novelty 
without serious appreciation of the discomforts. But the relapse 
came even before the fair winds which pushed us along at the rate 
of 250 miles a day had wholly changed their course. All the happy 
plans laid out for occupation, were unfortunately remembered 
only as we remember the ghost-stories of childhood. There was 
too much striving to keep one's body upright and stomach sound 
and heart awake and head from being dizzy to even think of the 
energy of serious endeavor. Indeed, I may set the fortnight of 
sail down as the longest in a long course of years. The closeness, 
the damp, the strange motion, the hurry, the jostling, and all need 
a practical sort of philosophy which I have not yet. 

The beautiful sunrises, moreover, that my new habits were to 
cause me to witness, were always covered up in mist and clouds as 
thick as the blankets and berth-curtains that at the same time 
covered me. We had three or four very hard blows from the south- 
west, such as would be called ashore, hurricanes. After this, winds 
prevailed from southeast, giving us a rough and cold and wet recep- 
tion off Cape Clear. We passed Bantra Bay Monday forenoon, 
and were off Holyhead Tuesday night at 10; took a pilot at 1 1 ; 
were anchored in the Mersey at 4. . . . 

. . . We are thus early established in winter quarters at the 
Clayton Arms Hotel, Clayton Square, where we have a snug parlor 
handsomely furnished . . . beside two bedrooms. . . . These all, 

88 



EUROPE 

with meals served at any hour and free attendance of servants for — 
I don't violate confidence in this — £3. 10s.; each per week equal to 
$6.60. Mr. White empowered me to treat for this bargain with 
our very pretty landlady below — her terms having been named at 
two guineas each. Of course I represented in as fair terms as possi- 
ble the advantages resulting from the patronage of the Consul, &c, 
&c, and succeeded in making present arrangement. The office is 
fifteen minutes' walk from this and the great thoroughfares, only 
a stone's throw off. So we have the advantage of nearness to busi- 
ness, without its noise. . . . 

On the following day he wrote a long letter to Mary 
Goddard: 

Well, here I am, Mary, in Mrs. Tribes' Clayton Arms Hotel, 
Clayton Square, Liverpool; in a second-floor parlor with Liverpool 
coal burning cheerfully as is its wont, Mr. White at the same table 
writing his wife. We have taken quarters for the winter, having 
this snug parlor with sofa, mahogany chairs, center table, damask 
and muslin curtains, Brussels carpet, windows opening to the 
floor, and folding doors to throw us open a suite of rooms on occa- 
sion of future entertainments to be given our American captains. 
Beside this, two bedrooms, No. 1 for myself two doors off on same 
floor, with tall curtained bed . . . and Mr. White's farther on 
along the gas-lighted corridor. The house is not a large one, nor 
one of great note; but retired, reputable, and near the Consulate 
office. Our meals are served to order at whatever hour, in what- 
ever style, and as luxuriantly as directed. All the hotels are of this 
sort. No table d'hote. Thus, to-night at tea appeared an elegant 
loaf of bread, a tea-tray, silver tea-pot, &c, two glass cups, one of 
black, the other of green tea (dry), a hot tea-kettle on the grate, 
hot tea-cakes, butter, &c, and a gentlemanly fellow to wait our 
bidding. At dinner comes up a tureen of soup; that removed, 
there appears a dish of fish and potatoes; next a piece of roast beef 
or other meat; then pie or pudding; then celery and done. I forget 

89 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

the beautiful English cheese — don't talk of Salem or Pomfret 
cheeses — this Cheshire one is as yellow as gold, as big as a table, as 
sweet as honey, as rich as butter, as fresh as ice, and as luscious as 
a peach. 

But I am beginning at the end. Didn't you ever suspect that I 
was going out in some sort of companionship with Mr. White, 
after all the little coincidences which I supposed would have been 
as strong as proofs of holy writ ? And do you rashly condemn my 
want of confidence for not making fuller disclosures? I was not 
allowed to do so — it was better so for Mr. White and better for 
me — to escape sundry banterings which very likely might have 
been thrust on me at home. Still I trust I should have had too 
much good sense to suffer a mere political propriety to stand in the 
way of a chance for improvement which might perhaps never again 
occur. 

I do not regret the determination. I find Mr. White kind and 
obliging — not as much polish as I would wish — but great plainness 
and honesty — and great practical force of character. 

But of the voyage. . . . For first four or five days had pleas- 
ant weather; that is to say, a fair wind but no sun or clear sky — 
indeed I have not seen the sun for an hour together since leaving 
Boston dock ! After the four, had four or five severe, very severe 
gales from southwest. An old navy officer on board pronounced 
them the hardest gales he had ever experienced. You can form no 
conception of the force of a blow at sea; the steamer rolled to lee- 
ward so as to forbid all standing upon deck or anywhere else and 
the spray covered the vessel, while the whole sea was as white as 
the ground after a day's snow. Indeed, it reminded me of a De- 
cember snow-storm, when the wind is strong enough to take one's 
skin off and cold enough to shrivel it up and the whole air thick 
with cutting atoms and the whole ground restless and all over 
white. After the gales, was adverse weather, the old ship pitching 
and plunging and rolling like — throw an egg-shell into the next pot 
of beef you boil, and you will see how — imagine yourself in the egg- 

90 



EUROPE 

shell, and you will feel how ! Great waves tumbling — as would 
seem upon you, then passing like an ocean of oil under — and heav- 
ing you up from the seething pool that growls and blackens and 
whirls with an awful strength and depth behind. ... I was not 
sick at all — I lost two dinners — the last on board, owing to nausea 
excited by so much cooking under my nostrils. Aside from this 
was well, though out every day in wet and spray, and walking wet 
decks in thin boots — and more than all, sleeping in a berth with 
the water oozing upon me drop by drop through deck of vessel in 
the storms off the coast. . . . 

I shall go down to London, over to Manchester, and all about 
soon. First I mean to acquaint myself with duties devolving on 
me. Shall also this winter attend lectures from scientific men two 
evenings in the week and take lessons in sketching, architectural 
drawing, and French. Office hours at Consulate are from 10 to 
4 p. m 

I shall keep no copies of letters, so that any possible future use 
would depend on preservation of copy. 

Mr. White had received his appointment to the Liverpool 
consulate from President Tyler, whose administration was 
nearing its end. Even before reaching Liverpool, therefore, 
Donald's chief was confronted with the prospect of a change 
of national administration at the November election, and a 
consequent uncertainty of consular tenure. Upon reaching 
the scene of their labors they were met with vexatious delays 
in preparing to take over the affairs of an office that had evi- 
dently been none too well managed. Donald's letters are 
full of details: 

{To Gen. Williams. Liverpool, Nov. 14th, 1844.) — . . . Mr. 
White is absent in London. His exequatur (permit from Foreign 
Office) had not arrived up to Tuesday night, and the Queen having 
taken a trip to Northampton accompanied by the Foreign Minister 

9i 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

(Lord Aberdeen), Mr. White grew somewhat impatient and under 
advice of the present incumbent of the office, Mr. Davy, the Consul 
for Leeds, he left for London on Wednesday morning. My stay 
here during his absence is not at all contrary to my wishes, the 
weather being exceedingly dull and a trip during session of Parlia- 
ment having more interest. Moreover, Mr. W. evidently felt a 
little sorely at the continued expenses and the delayed prospect 
of any return, which would have made it embarrassing to me. His 
exequatur arrived safely this morning, he, as in case of his com- 
mission, passing it on the road. . . . 

The office of the American Consulate is, I think I wrote in my 
last, in a very dismal part of the town, and itself a dingy, dirty 
place. And, if Mr. Polk is elected (at the time I write he either is 
or is not), I shall not cease importuning Mr. W. to consult private 
comfort and the reputation of the country in a speedy removal. 
But there's the rub ! Is Mr. P. elected ? At this very moment — yi 
past ii, night (}4 past 6 with you) — I fancy you looking over the 
returns . . . and settling with yourself the question of Mr. W's 
return or no. 

The affairs of the office are in most lamentable condition. 
There has been apparently for last year or two no order, no system, 
no neatness — nothing. I ask for Mr. Maury's correspondence and 
nothing is known of it; for Mr. Haggarty's and it is not there; for 
Mr. Ogden's and a parcel of books with entries in either end, topsy- 
turvy, are shown, which far enough from being models are quite 
the contrary. The same is true of every record of the office. Be- 
sides Mr. Davy there are connected with the office a Mr. Pearce, 
who has held his situation over twenty years as Vice Consul; a Mr. 
Welding, a sort of general clerk; and a boy for fire-making and 
errands. The office, as I said, is small . . . the front windows 
looking out upon the grave-yard of St. Nicholas' Church, from 
whence, in the opening of a grave, there must of course arise a 
most disagreeable effluvia. . . . 

3 o'clock, Friday. I have just returned from listening to the 

92 



EUROPE 

most extraordinary man I ever met with — Mr. Hughes, the Charge 
at The Hague. He called at the Consulate office in hope of seeing 
Mr. White, who has not yet returned from London. He seems to 
know everyone and be known of everyone, telling me I ought to be 
ashamed of myself for not having heard of him. His talk, an in- 
cessant stream of adventure in which himself was the hero, but 
with so good a grace that one could not impute conceit. I surely 
never laughed louder or longer. Of Mr. White he says, "How 
long has he been here?" "Nearly a fortnight." "What has he 
been doing?" "Nothing." "The very worst thing he could do. 
Tell him, the first day after his return to call upon the Mayor, the 
President of the Chamber of Commerce, &c, &c, or they will set 
him down for a gawky Yankee who is not half humanized. In 
fact," said he, "though I have been but six hours in the place I 
have heard hints already of dissatisfaction with his course." 

Between ourselves, the hints were well founded. And Mr. W. 
is better fitted for the business than for the etiquette of the station. 
This fact more than any other makes it difficult for me to put off 
my usual backwardness; am always resolving and never acting. 
And am sometimes inclined to believe that ease of social and 
worldly intercourse is inbred and that my lack of it cannot be sup- 
plied. Such an idea has always forwarded my disposition to live 
upon a farm. . . . 

1 6 Nov. 1844. Mr. W. entered upon the discharge of duties 
to-day, having returned this morning. I commenced work by 
writing some sixteen letters to neighboring consuls. . . . 

(To Mrs. Goddard. Liverpool, Nov. 15th, 1844.) — ... At 
noon I saw a . . . Mr. Hughes, our Charge des Affairs at The 
Hague — certainly the most extraordinary individual it has ever 
been my fortune to meet. His conversation was one torrent of 
wit, of anecdote, of adventure. His manner all impudence, care- 
lessness, and drollery. For three hours he held Mr. Davy (the 
acting Consul) and myself in a roar of laughter, or sober as judges. 
"Do you know me?" were his first words to me; "what, not know 

93 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

me? — then you ought to be ashamed of yourself." "Mind," said 
he, when he left, "don't tell your friends in America anything 
about me. I don't want to be known there. . . ." 

And how do I and how have I spent my time, you ask, while 
Mr. W. has been awaiting his authority from the Queen, who at 
her own will is gadding all over the country. Well, I have been 
to the ancient city of Chester. Do you remember about the 
stout old constable of Chester and his nephew Damian ? If not, 
read over next rainy day The Betrothed again. . . . Then I have 
been to Woolton, to Wavertree (see Cultivator), to Aigburth, &c, 
&c. Visits I have not made — I shall never make a visitor. ... It 
were perhaps as well not to speak much of my connection with 
Mr. W., as it is uncertain how long he continues, or how long I 
shall be with him. I shall not come home without seeing much of 
England, I assure you. 

{To Mrs. Goddard. Liverpool, Nov. 29th, 1844.) — . . . 
Saturday evening last I dined with Mr. Gair of the first mercantile 
house in Liverpool (partner of the Barings). Met there some half- 
dozen of American captains, &c; enjoyed myself therein not much, 
nor suffered at all. I shall be driven yet to talk, spite of myself; 
which reminds me of Uncle Henry [Perkins], to whom give my 
kindest remembrances. It is pleasant in this strange land to bear 
in mind the recollection of so generous a heart as his and one among 
the very few which I should, under any changes, count on as 
friendly to me. I hope he will bear up under the unlooked for and 
unhoped for success of Polk. It was a serious surprise this side, as 
well as the other. Mr. White, I think, little expected such a re- 
sult. "It is an ill wind that blows nobody any good." I suppose 
Mr. White will continue here and the opportunity given me of re- 
maining if I choose. This is, however, yet infuturo. One thing 
certainly — you need not look for me before next autumn. 

(To Gen. Williams. Liverpool, Nov. 30th, 1844.) — . . . 
Yesterday by the Hibernia was received . . . confirmation of the 

94 






EUROPE 

election of Mr. Polk of which we had earlier intelligence by the 
Great Western. It is matter of some surprise here, even of disap- 
pointment (not, however, with Mr. White). State bond holders 
are much chagrined at the result, and the ministerial organs are 
speaking very contemptuously of Mr. P., looking upon his election 
as further proof of the spread of ultra democratic principles. Nor 
are importers so sanguine of easier admission of their goods as 
would have been supposed. ... I suppose there can be no doubt 
of the confirmation of Mr. White. 

I am so far pleased with everything connected with my new 
duties, which are really very trifling. The opportunities for ac- 
quiring information having any connection with business are at 
every hand. I only fear that their commonness may suggest 
neglect. . . . 

Almost immediately the rural regions of England, so 
greatly in contrast with the baldness of what he had been 
accustomed to in America, began to take hold upon him. 
His letters to the Cultivator^ of Albany, New York, bear wit- 
ness to the strength of his feeling. "I am assured," he wrote 
from Liverpool, January 4th, 1845, "that the farm houses of 
Lancashire compare unfavorably with those of almost any 
county in England. Still there is a soberness, a quietness, a 
tastefulness, a rurality, and a home-look about nearly all I 
have seen, which once grafted upon the country houses in 
America, will go far toward making our landscape equal to 
English in beauty." 1 He was quick to see, also, that the 
charm was a result of the beauty-loving spirit which had 
been inbred and had become a second nature to the British; 
that it was not dependent upon means or leisure. After 
watching a threshing scene in mid-England, he sent a mes- 
sage to the husbandmen of America. "Before I left," he 

x The Cultivator (April 1845), 120. 

95 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

wrote, "the threshers suspended labor for dinner; and what 
was it ? Half a barley loaf and a bit of cheese ! — this eaten 
squat upon the straw and moistened with a jug of water and 
cut in pieces with their pocket clasp-knives. This is no joke; 
it was their dinner; and yet a stone's throw away lay the 
three hundred acre park for old oaks to fatten on, and herds 
of deer to dance over, and scores of hares to trip about, and 
breed, and die upon. Let our farmers and farm laborers 
thank heaven that they are not set down within the range of 
such odious contrasts. And yet, and it is a shame to every 
man in America who has a spot of land and a soul — these 
same laborers, dining on barley bread, will save enough of 
time and of means to put out the sweet brier at their cottage 
window, to train the ivy up their chimney side, and to keep 
the grass green and velvety at their door. What for ? Do 
you say what for ? 'Out of the ground made the Lord God to 
grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight.'" l 

Donald's connection with the consulate was of short dura- 
tion. The fogs and damps of Liverpool aggravated his al- 
ready weak lungs to such an extent that he was compelled to 
seek a milder climate. He communicated his plans and 
uncertainties to Gen. Williams in a letter dated December 
24 th, 1844: 

The contents of this will surprise you, but I hope not disturb 
you. You will probably have received before this, by ship, a letter 
addressed to Louis and Alfred, advising you of my having taken 
cold and finding it difficult to rid myself of a cough contracted by it. 
The cough has continued and is upon me now, but attended by no 
unfavorable symptom beside. I find that nearly every third man 
here is troubled in the same way; still, considering my disposition 

x The Cultivator (May 1845), 139. Written from St. Hiliers, Island of Jersey, 
February is^, 1845. 

96 



EURO PE 

to weakness in that quarter, and after having consulted a physician 
here, I think it altogether advisable to make a change of climate — 
the physician assuring me that a few days' sail to the south, by 
taking me out of the region of these everlasting fogs and smoke, 
would entirely relieve me. Observe, I have no weakness in any 
way — am as strong — as active — with as good an appetite as ever; 
but fear that irritation of a tender organ for a long time will de- 
range it. 

My next quandary has been which way to turn myself. Mr. 
White, not having news of his confirmation, was unwilling to leave 
his post and as uncertain as myself which would be my better 
course of procedure. Once I thought of taking ship for New Or- 
leans, to which port many vessels are sailing weekly with delightful 
weather, following the trade winds. The expense would be £20 
passage each way and expenses there; but my great objection was 
that I should from the length of the passage lose the entire winter, 
whereas by taking a route to the Mediterranean I should have the 
same advantage of sea-air united with opportunity for observa- 
tion. ... I have tried to imagine what would be your advice 
under the circumstances and much regret that I cannot wait to 
receive it. In way of expenses it will of course be an unexpected 
revulsion. . . . 

. . . The weather here has been very cold, and though the mer- 
cury has not ranged so low as with us, yet I find the air much more 
penetrating. The great trouble, however, is in the thickness and 
the smoke. I am even sometimes disposed to think that to be rid 
of them would be to rid myself of lung trouble; still, prefer the safer 
way of breathing a while in a warmer as well as a purer atmosphere. 

Another subject I must not omit to mention to you which will 
doubtless no less surprise you, though differently. Shortly after 
reaching Liverpool, upon looking over the list of U. S. Consuls in 
the various ports on the Continent, Mr. White asked me in a half 
joking way how I should like such and such consulates; to which I 
replied in as joking a way. . . . Since that time and especially 

97 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

since my cough has offered to drive me away, Mr. W. has frequently 
renewed the subject. . . . I am much puzzled as to what is proper 
action under the circumstances. With regard to aptitude for the 
business, if none other should occur than such as has come before 
this Consulate during our stay thus far, I should feel confidence in 
myself for its proper transaction. Still I should be sensible that 
my age might well excite demurral. . . . The duties here have, 
it is true, been very light; for my part, much lighter than I could 
have desired. So far as my own improvement is concerned, I 
know not what to think of the proposal; indeed, it would depend 
very much on the port where might be the offered Consulate. I 
have no doubt but under such responsibility as would necessarily 
attach to such appointment, I could act to more advantage than 
where no responsibility attached. Somebody has remarked that 
many a soldier would make as great a general as Washington, if 
placed in the same circumstances. High responsibility calls out 
all a man's resources and I have reached that time of life when 
my resources ought to begin to develop — such as decision, prompt- 
ness, prudence, application of knowledge, adaptation of action to 
circumstance, &c, &c, all of which qualities can have but limited 
exercise in any position not primary. Still, I should choose to feel 
more confidence in the result of my actions than now, and there- 
fore should prefer returning to spend the summer months with Mr. 
W., and if well enough the next winter — of which, indeed, I have 
no fears — after which, if there could be found a berth with no better 
claimant in some good port along the Mediterranean, or even in 
England — out of this smoke and fog — which would pay my way 
fairly, I see no good reason now for not taking such an one. I sup- 
pose, however, Mr. W. does not hope for so much influence with 
the incoming President as with Mr. Tyler. He is confident of 
effecting the nomination by present incumbent. I hope you 
will not fail to give me your views on this subject by the return 
steamer. . . . 

Jan. i. To-morrow begins the New Year and to-morrow I shall 

9 8 



EUROPE 

start for Guernsey hoping a month's run upon the islands in its 
neighborhood will restore me fully. I have rid myself of my cough, 
but wish a little extra strength to ward off all cold and wet to 
come. After my return I shall either take fencing lessons, or as 
you advise, horse-exercise. . . . 

On the 3d of January 1845, Donald began his journey 
southward from Liverpool. However much he disliked its 
smoke and fog, when the time for departure came he left 
the gray city with a pang of regret. The state of his feelings 
may be gathered from a letter which he wrote to Mrs. 
Goddard on the evening of New Year's Day. "In remem- 
brance of your frequent kindnesses to me the past year," 
runs the letter, "I cannot forbear wishing you this first day, 
a happy new one. Happier than I anticipate myself — per- 
haps I feel unduly despondent — but a little ill-health and 
this continued, dreadful, foggy weather does draw down one's 
spirits wonderfully. No snow yet, but wet and chills and 
always smoke — and no sun. I leave it to-morrow; this again 
causes disquietude — to leave the only acquaintance this side 
and pass a month or two or more upon the bits of islands 
which lie off the coast of France . . . with only such com- 
munication with my little world as these letters afford, is a 
little saddening. My present intentions are to pass sufficient 
time among the islands to see them wholly; then to come on 
to the coast of Devon, and weather and health and spirits 
permitting, to buy me there a little pony and to saunter up 
to this county again — partly riding, partly walking — seeing 
all my eyes and impudence will admit of. This looks very 
pleasantly on paper, but not so richly appear my views of 
the actuality; viz., possible sickness, no friend to care for me, 
or hardly hear of me. . . ." 

99 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

Such were the general plans with which he set forth. 
Doubtless at the time he could scarcely have analyzed his 
own feelings and motives with entire accuracy. He had 
been away from America just long enough to feel the full 
strength of homesickness; the duties at the consulate were 
not sufficient, or of such nature, as to absorb his attention; 
and in consequence he had developed a restlessness that 
could be satisfied only by action. The spirit of adventure 
was upon him; the green fields and historic shrines of Britain 
were calling to him. Without knowing it, he was adopting 
just the proper course for one of his temperament and state 
of health; he was to feed his mind and spirit by the wayside 
and to restore his broken health in the soft open air of out- 
door England. 

He was well equipped for the journey. He was widely 
read in English history and literature, topography was with 
him a hobby, and he carried as keen a pair of Yankee eyes 
as ever looked upon Europe. He had, too, the spirit of the 
true traveller, and in this antedated Robert Louis Stevenson 
by many years. The light through which he observed was 
not the ordinary light of every day; it was a light colored by 
the passion and romance of his own nature. Where others 
saw only things, he saw things lighted up by memories, 
emotions, and hopes. Nor should we fail to remember that 
despite the sorrows through which he had passed, he was 
essentially a young man of buoyant spirit with a hearty sense 
of humor. The reader will carry away a wrong conception 
if he does not grasp at once the fact that throughout life 
Mr. Mitchell was in great degree a humorist. He missed no 
bit of fun. His bright eyes twinkled with merriment and on 
occasion there were few heartier laughers. This play of 
light fancy against the strong background of his predomi- 

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EUROPE 

nating mood of deep sentiment and pensive reverie must be 
kept clearly in mind. It is a key to the understanding of 
his nature. 

Leisurely by rail and coach he proceeded southward 
through Birmingham, Worcester, Gloucester, Bristol, and 
Exeter to Plymouth. In each place he remained long enough 
to see the objects of immediate interest. He knew how to 
depend upon himself, and his knowledge and travel sense 
enabled him to do so. "Of general guide-books which cover 
the whole ground, none stands pre-eminent,' ' he wrote a few 
months later. " Nothing is better than a map and a thorough 
knowledge of English history. These two together will open 
sights to a man with eyes, at which he cannot tire of looking, 
and which he will never forget. And he who is not familiar 
with the great epochs of English history and the localities of 
their evolutions will spend a few days economically in a garret 
of London or Liverpool, sweating with Turner or Hume." * 
On the 4th of January he attended services in Gloucester 
cathedral and afterward spent an hour rambling through it 
and observing it critically. "No cathedral architecture in 
England/' he observed later, "so impressed me by the wealth 
and variety of sharp- wrought details. There is a bold offence 
against conventionalities in treatment, which is admirable." 
The beauties of Devonshire entranced him and at the little 
inn of Erme-bridge in the vicinity of Ermington 2 he remained 

1 "Notes by the Road," No. 1. American Review (February 1846), 158. 

2 "How I wish you could have stopped on your way through Devonshire at 
Erme-bridge near to Modbury, a beautiful region where I passed a fortnight at a 
country inn in January 1845 luxuriating in wood walks, and in gooseberry tart with 
clotted cream, with great banks of splendid laurestina and Spanish laurels piling up 
in heaps under my window. There is no such country anywhere as in England, and 
nowhere a people who so comprehend all that can and ought to be made of it." — D. 
G. M. in letter to his daughter Elizabeth, December 29th, 1882. Mr. Mitchell's 
memory did not serve him accurately as to the length of his stay. 

IOI 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

for a week, enjoying country walks, exploring the nooks and 
crannies of the neighborhood, talking with the countrymen, 
and witnessing the preparations of a troop of scarlet-coated, 
top-booted fox-hunters. Here, too, his note-book tells us, 
he met and conversed with an original of Sam Weller, Sr., 
upon questions of education, government, and religion ! 
Erme-bridge lives in the pages of his first book, as do many 
of the other places visited by him during this first period 
abroad. 1 He gave eleven days to this stage of his journey, 
arriving in Plymouth the evening of January 13th. 

It had been Donald's original intention to take passage 
in a Torquay steamer for Jersey; indeed, the booking-agent 
at Exeter had assured him he would be in time for the sailing. 
Once in Torquay, however, he found that no steamer ran in 
the winter months, nor was there any short of Southampton. 
Lacking funds sufficient to carry him to Southampton, he 
had turned from the thoroughfares and with the sweet free- 
dom of the road upon him, " traveled hopefully " and leisurely 
to Plymouth. Here he engaged passage for Jersey in the 
Zebra> "a little, black, one-masted vessel" — known and 
loved by every admirer of Mr. Mitchell — which owes its 
immortality to Donald's description of its perilous sail across 
the English Channel. 2 

"On Monday, the 13th," he wrote to Gen. Williams, "I 
went down to Plymouth and after looking about it — specially 
at its wonderful breakwater — set sail in a little, one-masted 
cutter for Jersey. Left harbor on Tuesday at 5 p. m., and 
reached Jersey on Friday, at 1 p. m. ! Usual passage is 
twenty-eight hours. I need not tell you we had exceeding 
rough weather — not so good accommodations as in a New 

1 Fresh Gleanings, 8-U, and 'passim for the two years of travel. 

2 Every one should read this description in Fresh Gleanings^ 14-24. It is one of 
Mr. Mitchell's most spirited narratives. 

I02 



1 



EUROPE 

London fishing smack. ... All crowded in one dirty cabin 
where the sailors' messes were cooked and no vent for the 
smoke. You are surprised that I did not throw myself over- 
board — doubtless; but I had not strength to do so, so exceed- 
ing sick was I (it must be confessed). The Atlantic, and 
Atlantic steamers are nothing to a swell in the English 
Channel on board a cutter of forty tons. I feel myself a 
sailor now. But it is over, and has done me good. My 
cough has left me and has left me in doubt whether to return 
and try again northern air, or spend the winter out here. 
Prudence dictates the latter course." Mr. Mitchell used to 
say laughingly that from the day he set foot on Jersey soil 
his lung- trouble vanished; that all seeds of disease had gone 
overboard into the raging channel ! It is certain that hence- 
forward his health improved; and, although he never became 
a man of robust health, he was active, energetic, and very 
tenacious of life. 

The day after his arrival he found lodging at La Solitude, 
a cottage down a little by-way from the high road to St. 
Savior's. "The very first time/' he wrote, "that I swung 
open the green gate that opens on the by-way and brushed 
through the laurel bushes and read the name modestly 
written over the door and under the arbor that was flaunting 
in the dead of winter with rich green ivy leaves, my heart 
yearned toward it as toward a home." * A week later, with 
memories of Elmgrove racing through his mind, he sat in 
his room writing to Mary Goddard: 

{January 24th, 1845.) — ■ • • Yours of the 226. [December 
1844] is by me, and with it comes so strongly revival of old times — 
the busy importance of Alf; the noisy laugh issuing from under 

1 Fresh Gleanings, 43. 
I03 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

that little sunbonnet; the pattering feet of Henry; the wagging tail 
and earnest, imploring look of Carlo — that I must needs say "How 
d'ye do" to each several one of them again, not excepting yourself 
and husband. 

Can you realize, any one of you, that 4,000 miles of green and 
blue — then green again — rock, and turbulent ocean is swelling be- 
tween that old Mumford house with its porch and long back- 
chimney — and I daresay snow-covered roof — and this little, snug, 
Norman cottage where I am lolling before a grate full of coals and 
watching the sun streaming brightly down into my neighbor's 
garden upon box-border and gravel walks; and rich looking cauli- 
flowers thrusting out their white powdered heads fearlessly into 
the January air; and fir trees and bunches of American laurel; and 
beyond it a bold, bald cliff where a dozen quarrymen are hammer- 
ing upon its sides — or looking from the other window down upon 
the roofs and spires and peaks and chimneys of the little city of St. 
Hiliers; and beyond it, and casting a broad, black shadow over 
its further half, the mammoth pile of rock upon which stand out 
distinctly the bastions and curtains of Fort Regent, from which 
every morning at sunrise a gun booms over the town, and upon 
whose highest point — half-way up its tall flag-staff — the signal 
ball is even now flying which says, " Mail for England closes to- 
night'' Say — can you realize it? It is even so. There are play- 
ful fellows in the streets of a certain height, but all Philippes or 
Louis — and jabber a most barbarous language — and there are Car- 
los; but they answer to the French of "Come here." . . . My 
health is much better — cough entirely left me. . . . 

A month later and he was writing again to Mary, his 
thoughts of Elmgrove still glowing, his tastes quickened by 
the scenes amidst which he was living, and his hopes bright- 
ening toward some vague future. "I have seen many hun- 
dred rustic seats in England," he wrote (February 27th, 1845), 
"but none superior to yours (upon honor). You will [eas]ily 

104 



EUROPE 

conceive that I do not look over beautiful places and pretty 
places with my eyes shut, or without accumulating hints 
which, if God spares my life and health, may some day be 
illustrated in making richer some nook of American land- 
scape." And then, with reference to some praise which had 
been pronounced upon one of the letters which he had con- 
tributed to the Cultivator, he resumed: "I shall continue 
letters in Cultivator. Those for May and June you may find 
of interest as covering ground recently gone over. I was 
much pleased with the character of Mr. Chas. Goddard's re- 
mark upon my letter. Nothing seems to me so lacking in 
ordinary letters from England as the neglect of those minor 
features which make up the peculiarity of the new scenes. 
What I want is to give those who read the letters the advan- 
tage, not of my knowledge, or of my opinion, or the opinion 
of anyone else; but of — my eyes" 

Jersey was a constant delight to him. He spent some- 
thing more than two months exploring all the corners of the 
island, studying its history, improving his French under the 
direction of an instructor, and outlining the months of travel 
for the future which was gradually shaping its course for 
him. The mild climate proved highly beneficial. His mode 
of daily living could not have been more wisely regulated 
for one in his state of health. It was long before the fresh- 
air treatment for tuberculosis was appreciated, yet Donald 
was daily doing for himself more wisely than could any physi- 
cian. "A frequent walk of mine," runs a note in his travel 
album beneath a picture of the beach, "was along the sands 
of St. Aubin's Bay; the sand firm and white and the sea-air 
full of health." It was the beginning of a fight for health 
that was to end in victory. 

Even in this beautiful haven he had further testing of 

105 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

soul. Sorrow still pursued him, and he had many periods of 
homesickness and depression attendant upon uncertain 
health. News of his sister's rapid decline was reaching him 
regularly. On the 29th of November, from Liverpool, he 
had written to Mrs. Goddard: "'What shadows we are and 
what shadows we pursue/ Poor Lucretia, I fear I may never 
see her again." To Gen. Williams, on the 23d of January, 
he wrote: "I am pained to learn of Lucretia's increased ill- 
ness. But I fear that under the Providence which has so 
inscrutably attended our life as a family, we must be pre- 
pared for the worst." The worst was not long in coming; 
a letter from Gen. Williams, received on the 16th of February, 
conveyed the news of Lucretia's death on January 16th. 
"Your last," replied Donald, "was a sad letter, and I can 
only hope regarding its most melancholy item of intelligence 
that it may not be without its good effects upon each one of 
the three who make up the remnant. . . ." To Mrs. God- 
dard, who had also written him, he replied: "Your kind 
though sad letter of January reached me just a month after 
the death of dear L. I was in some measure prepared for the 
tidings. . . . Yet it is very hard to make myself believe 
that she is indeed gone; that but three of us are left out of 
such a family ! Who shall be next ? It is perhaps foolish to 
put questions on paper, that everyone puts in mind; but if it 
be I, may it please God to bestow willingness to wait His 
pleasure. ... I am much obliged by your kind particu- 
larity of description; and it is most pleasant to know that 
wishes and sympathies could not add to or detract from the 
quiet of her death, and that her last hours, at least were not 
passed unattended by friends. I thank you, as well for being 
there as for communicating everything of interest." Death, 
which had until now beset the family so sorely, was not again 
to lay finger upon it for thirty-six years. 

106 



EUROPE 

At length his residence in Jersey — protracted from day to 
day by reason of the late, cold spring — came to an end. On 
the 24th of March he bade a reluctant farewell to La Soli- 
tude and sailed by steamer for Weymouth, thence making 
his way through Dorchester and Salisbury to Winchester, 
where on the 27th he found a letter from Mr. White summon- 
ing him to London. In London, before Mr. White's arrival, 
he experienced the temporary shortage of funds and had the 
agonizing search for his belated letter which he has so humor- 
ously related in Seven Stories. 1 A few weeks before, Mr. 
White had apprised him of the appointment of a new consul; 
now he told him of his intention to return home and of his 
plan to sail from Liverpool on April 19th. By this time 
Donald had determined to continue his travels in Britain. 
On the 1st of April he left for an extended journey, proceed- 
ing partly by stage, chiefly on foot. From Kenilworth he 
wrote to Mrs. Goddard (April 10th, 1845): 

Here I am in sight of the old Castle: it is five o'clock and raining. 
I have walked to-day from Stratford-on-Avon, a distance of four- 
teen miles — stepping an hour or two at Warwick to have a look at 
its famous Castle and Park, and to run through its queer old 
streets. ... It is raining April showers and has been for hours. 
I am wet and drying by the fire, while a dinner of sole and chops is 
getting ready for me. A half-pint of sherry I have ordered to warm 
me, is by my elbow, and I stop a moment to drink your good health. 
My luggage has gone down by railway — (I only carry a small 
portmanteau) to Coventry, where I shall be to-morrow night. On 
Wednesday (yesterday) I was rambling over Stratford-on-Avon, 
chasing out the old walks of Shakespeare, gossiping with the old 
woman who shows his birthplace, sauntering in the church-yard, 
walking out to his Anne Hathaway's home, &c, &c. I stopped 
at the Red Horse; had the room Irving occupied, accidentally. 

1 See pp. 12-22. 
I07 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

Walked to-day through the Charlcote Park, the old seat of the 
Lucys, where Shakespeare first offended. On Tuesday I walked 
from Chipping Norton to Stratford, distance twenty-two miles, 
between breakfast and dinner; the previous day left Woodstock, 
passing by Ditchley, the Lea place, by Whichwood Forest and 
Charlbury to Chipping Norton. Sunday passed at Woodstock; on 
Saturday was at Oxford — went over its Halls and into the Bod- 
leian Library, the largest in England; on Friday walked from 
Streatley, a little village on the Thames, to Oxford, distance nine- 
teen miles. On Thursday walked from Henley-on-Thames through 
Reading to Streatley, distance twenty miles; on Wednesday 
walked from Windsor to Henley. 

As he rambled on through Derbyshire he was impressed 
by the decay of the inns along what were formerly the great 
coaching highways. Since the Liverpool and Manchester 
Railway had been completed only sixteen years before, he 
was in ample time to observe the effects of the new upon the 
old modes of travel during this transition period. One of 
the best of the few extended descriptions in his travel 
diaries concerns his experience at one of these inns: 

{April 14th, 1845.) — Besides destroying the old race of portly 
and independent coachmen with their attachees of grooms and 
porters and hangers-on, the swift locomotion of the present day has 
been the ruin of many fine old inns which may be frequently seen 
along what are now the by-roads of travel in England, their shut 
doors and empty and noiseless courts telling drearily of their deser- 
tion. I particularly remember on coming over the green hills in 
central Derbyshire out of that most beautiful of valleys — Dove 
Dale — the quiet loneliness of what was once a great London and 
Manchester highway. The turf was creeping more and more over 
the macadamed road and had already made green all the wide space 
between the walls save a single narrow cart-track. The mile-stones 
of iron, showily painted, were accumulating great blotches of rust; 

108 



EUROPE 

even the little toll-house had an antiquated and deserted look, and 
the gate hung slouchingly, half-open and half-shut. A drover or 
two going with their herds to the Derby Fair were the only persons 
I met in a distance of six or seven miles. 

At the end of a long plantation of larches upon a high hill over- 
looking half a dozen little valleys, I came upon one of the old coach- 
inns. It stood by itself: with the exception of one or two clustered 
hamlets in the valley below, there was no house in sight. Its great 
stone courts, sweeping around the paved square, were open to the 
road. The doors were all of them shut, and the stone pebbles in the 
court were nearly all encircled with a green turflet. The inn itself, 
which was a square, large mansion, and which stood just far enough 
back from the roadside to allow a coach and four to be driven up 
in dashing style between it and the door, was closed at every point, 
and was dismally silent. I did not even see a dog stirring. The 
great black sign which was still hanging between the front windows 
was so rusted and weather-beaten that I could not at all make out 
its burthen, and the ivy which clambered up in rich style from 
either side the door was shaking its uncropt branches over it. . . . 

A mile further along the way appeared the high roofs and long 
line of outbuildings belonging to a now silent but once noisy and 
bustling claimant of traveler's patronage. It had even more pre- 
tensions to grandeur, now unfortunately exposing it the more to 
expressions of pity and regret. Without doubt, they had some 
day been great rivals. . . . But the bustle once attending the 
arrival, two or three times in the day, of the London coach with 
its crowded top-load . . . live now only in . . . memories . . . 
and . . . dreamy fancies. The coach is put on some ignoble route 
in a suburban neighborhood; the groom has found a place in the 
city stables, or acquires a doubtful livelihood by picking up a few 
halfpence as coach-porter about some town inn. The coachman is 
dead, or has become a small farmer, or yet upon the box growls at 
the dull hacks which are allowed him, and mutters curses on the 
rail [way]. 

109 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

... It was the middle of [the] afternoon when I came up with 
the second inn. I had walked over the hills from the little town 
of Ashbourne, in the forks of the Dove, that morning, and . . . 
was curious to learn what sort of hospitality one of these great 
old houses of a by-gone time might afford, in its present abandon- 
ment. The smoke was rolling lazily from only a single one of the 
many chimney tops and the great door of the vestibule to which I 
first applied was fastened. Opposite was another through which 
I entered, and had gone half-way down the great bare hall when a 
middle-aged woman appeared at its lower end and beckoning me 
forward showed me into a large parlor where, to my surprise, a coal 
fire was burning in a large grate. ... It was by no means an 
old-fashioned house, having been built somewhere between 1820 
and '30, when coaching was at its highest promise; indeed, had it 
been old, its decay of traffic would in some measure be associated 
with its age and so bereave it of that peculiar regard which seemed 
to belong to it as the monument of an extinct system. The high 
walls and ornamented cornice and generous casements and silken 
bell-pulls, above all the rich blue and gilt china upon the table, 
bespoke the luxuries of the present age. Two or three heavy 
mahogany tables stood about the room; the chairs were of an old 
style and stuffed, with hair-cloth dressing. ... A series of hunt- 
ing pictures in faded gilt frames hung about the room, besides one 
or two sporting portraits over the mantle. It was just one of 
those rooms which with a roistering company at one or two of the 
tables, and a chat of two or three around the grate, would have 
been one of the most cheerful rooms imaginable; but which, alone, 
the great hall silent, all still above and around, save an occasional 
footfall of the solitary maid in the chambers, or the harsh wind 
shaking the casements, was fearfully dismal. 

A superannuated old gray-hound came in with the waiter and 
stretched himself composedly on the rug at my feet. ... I had 
intended only a stop to dine, but while sitting the rain began to fall 
and soon increased to a storm. I was obliged to content myself 

no 



EUROPE 

with an old newspaper and those wandering fancies part of which 
are here set down, for the evening. My bed was hung round with 
heavy red curtains, and the windows similarly attired — the only 
ones, as I saw from without, which retained this trace of their 
former state. 

A bit of broiled ham and an egg at eight o'clock of a morning 
as dark and threatening as had been the night. As I looked out 
of the window, a shepherd in his gray frock, who was now servi- 
tor in place of groom, was driving a scanty flock of a dozen ewes 
from the great stable court. The great gates were thrown down 
from their hinges, and a few hurdles ranged about the great stable 
entrance had confined the little flock from the night's storm. The 
sovereign I offered in payment had to be sent a mile away to be 
changed. I went to the door unattended and the driving currents 
in the great building almost slammed it against me. Two or three 
times I turned back to look at its empty windows and its silent 
courts. At length a plantation of firs and pines sighing in the 
wind shut it from my sight. 1 

Passing on by way of Bakewell and Manchester he 
reached Liverpool the evening of the 16th, and from the 
Clayton Arms Hotel despatched a letter to Gen. Williams. 
"I find myself in Liverpool at length and waiting for Mr. 
White's return from the Continent," he wrote. "My health 
is very good. I have walked something over one hundred 
miles the fortnight past through Berkshire, Oxfordshire, 
Warwickshire, and parts of Derbyshire. The particulars of 
my route I have communicated to Mrs. Goddard. ... I 
keep a small book of notes such as I can carry in my pocket, 
and in my brief method — making a single word the exponent 
of a scene. You will see some letters of mine perhaps in the 
Commercial. I have my doubts as to the policy of such news- 

1 See Wet Days at Edgezvood, 225-230, for a few paragraphs based upon this entry. 

Ill 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

paper writing and indeed only am induced in the hope of 
giving passing gratification to friends with whom I cannot so 
fully communicate. I am aware some would have a pride 
in abstaining, though capable of giving far more interest to 
such letters; yet it seems to me a foolish pride. . . ." On 
the 19th of April he saw Mr. White off on the Hibernia for 
America, and two days later resumed his wanderings. 

May 6th, 1845, saw ft ^ m a g a i n m London, where on 
the 15th he wrote to Mrs. Goddard from 149 Aldersgate 
Street. "I hardly remember where my last was dated, dear 
Mary. . . . Since then I have been through Ireland and the 
south of Wales; have drunk out of the Giant's Well at the 
great Causeway; slept at Armagh and Belfast; attended ser- 
vice in a Dublin cathedral; strolled after sunset in the rich, 
wild glens of the county of Wicklow; been tossed over the 
Irish Channel and into the bay of Bristol; walked under the 
broken walls of the old castle of Cardiff; and clambered to 
the tops of some of the highest of the Welsh hills . . . and 
next week will find me among the hills and streams of West- 
moreland and the week after amid the c banks and braes' of 
Scotland." At Wicklow he had visited the Model Farm; 
at Armagh he had spent that "wet day at an Irish inn" 
which lived later in the pages 1 of one of his best stories; at 
Merthyr-Tydvil he went through the iron-works. His diary 
record of the coach journey to Abergavenny merits a place 
here: 

At ten, or a quarter after, the coach from Swansea comes 
rattling up in the rain. ... In ten minutes more the fresh horses 
are on and the Abergavenny goers crowding in the shower to 
the top. I go into the coach office . . . and put my name down 

1 Seven Stories, 43-72. 
112 



EUROPE 

for an inside. The back-seat is full — a youngish woman with a 
young baby in her arms; beside her is a young Welsh girl of ten 
summers, modest and pretty. Presently the hat-box which had 
filled the vacancy beside me and which I had anticipated as afford- 
ing the most agreeable companionship of all, gives place to a Mer- 
thyr's granny in a heavy home-spun cloak and black bonnet tied 
round her head with a white neck-cloth spotted with crimson. . . . 
At length the whip snapped, the old lady flung herself back with 
an Oh, dear ! and the coach rattled away from the Castle Inn door 
where the stout boots stood touching his cropped-crowned hat for 
a parting adieu. . . . 

Unfortunately, the valley beside which the road goes up to the 
east of Wales, and all its sights, are the opposite side of the way 
from that on which I sit, and with a most provoking pertinacity 
the old woman keeps her black bonnet bobbing directly between 
me and the window. A cruel but effectual expedient occurs to me 
to be rid of the annoyance. By opening the window next me, I 
throw such a draft of damp air upon the old lady's head that she 
is fain to withdraw it into the corner of the coach. But who can 
reckon on a woman's submission? She asks me in her broken 
English to draw up the glass. It is easy for me to misunderstand 
and reach . . . across to shut the opposite window. The old lady 
indeed interposes a "nae, nae," and the woman with the baby 
giggles and the little maid opposite looks very willing but afraid 
to laugh outright. I sit gazing steadfastly through the glass upon 
the enlarged prospect not wholly with a conscience void of offence, 
yet satisfied that the end justified the means. . . . 

In the outskirts of one of these little villages at the sign of the 
Colliers Arms we leave the woman with the babe. Her opposite 
neighbor in the big cloak takes the vacant seat and now that I 
have closed my window against the scudding drops of rain opens 
her own with a self-satisfied smile and taking from the basket at 
her feet a huge loaf of cake, a bit of jack-knife from her pocket 
which she opens daintily, she proceeds earnestly with her dejeuner^ 

"3 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

the little girl looking all the while furtively and with humorsome 
glances at me upon the zeal of the old lady. 

Nor can I forget the bright-eyed, ruddy-cheeked boy in a tas- 
seled cap and nice-lined gown over his blue clothes who was wait- 
ing for this little Welsh maid at the Beaufort Arms in the beautiful 
valley town of Clydarch. I lost sight of her as she stepped out of 
the coach and the groom closed the door; but through the window 
I could see the arch and proud look of the boy as he ran his eye 
restlessly over the lookers-on, or suffered it to rest, as seemed to me, 
upon some object about his own height, with a most intent gaze, 
which some sudden fancy would instantly divert. I remember, 
too, the rich suffusion of color that ran over his face as he once or 
twice caught my gaze in his furtive glance. . . . Presently a 
pair of pattering feet — two pairs — walked round the coach and 
out of hearing. . . . 

At length the scene grew broader; the stream flowed leisurely 
under wooded banks; the hills kept back and divided for half a 
dozen little dells — which were big enough to be valleys in Eng- 
land — to peep out upon the broad, rich basin on which lay spread 
like a map the lanes and enclosures and roofs of the old town of 
Abergavenny. 1 

"I have this day only come into Scotland," he wrote to 
Gen. Williams on May 31st, 1845, fr° m Kelso. "My last 
was dated London, which place I left on Friday a week ago. 
I passed through the counties of Essex, Suffolk, Cambridge, 
Lincoln, York, Durham, and Northumberland. Sunday 
last I spent in Cambridge, attending service in King's Col- 
lege Chapel, the finest building in England. At Lincoln I 
spent half a day, at York half a day, and was at Hull on my 
way." On the same day he wrote enthusiastically to Mrs. 
Goddard: "I have time for only a line. Here I am in the 
midst of beauties such as you may dream of if you read Mar- 

1 Cf. "A Ride in the Rain." Southern Literary Messenger (April 1848), 209-211. 

II 4 



EUROPE 

mion, or hear the 'Blue Bonnets' sung, over night. One way- 
are the Cheviots, blue as the sky that kisses them — another 
way are the Eildon hills and that Sandy Knowe where 
Walter Scott spent his boy days — just by, the most beauti- 
ful Tweed is murmuring between banks prettier than the 
pictures you see of them; then there is Kelso Abbey and 
Roxburgh Abbey and Melrose and Dryburgh where Sir 
Walter lies, and Selkirk and Ettrick and the Yarrow all 
within convenient tramping distance. Yesterday I ate my 
bread and cheese and soused them in a pint of home-brewed 
ale within sight of the ruin of Norham Castle (Marmiori) and 
rode in the coach over Twisel Bridge — 

' they crossed 
The Till by Twisel Bridge. 
High sight it is, and haughty/ 

(Marmion, Cfanto] vi.) " 

From Inverness, whither reverence for the memory of his 
forebear, Donald Grant, had drawn him, he wrote to Gen. 
Williams on the 16th of June: "Since my last (from Kelso, I 
think) I have visited Edinburgh, where I spent three days, 
Stirling, Melrose, Dalkeith, Kinross, Perth, Dunkeld — 
which place I left for this on Friday last. Thus far I have 
accomplished my trip in good health, always busied with new 
objects and meeting with no mishap or loss — saving on 
Thursday last the taking a pound less than I ought in change 
and not discovering my error until fifty miles away. ... I 
miss a companion sadly, particularly in these wild districts 
of the North; but by keeping myself busied with a constant 
succession of new objects I avoid that sense of loneliness 
which would otherwise be very oppressive. When I come 
again, it shall be with a companion of some sort. I am by 

"5 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

no means sure that improvement of opportunity is anything 
less from lack of company, since attention which might 
otherwise be devoted to conversation or remark is now from 
very necessity given to constant and unremitting observa- 
tion. I think I could safely submit to examination on any 
point connected with the appearance, situation, climate, 
&c, &c, of all the towns yet visited. A letter from my uncle 
by the Hibernia favors a long stay, primarily on the ground 
of health and secondarily in view of fuller observation, hint- 
ing that such observations may ensure some profit by publi- 
cation. I am not so sanguine of such a result. With few 
exceptions the literary men of our country have impoverished 
themselves by their labors. The mere reputation of being a 
literary man I by no means desire. To be among the fore- 
most of such is indeed worth an effort; but when such effort 
involves what it does, the matter is debatable. It is easy for 
a fool to empty his head or his purse, either singly or to- 
gether. A wise man only, knows how to keep both full. 
I did not write that as a proverb, but I think it will stand 
stronger tests than some proverbs that are in the mouths of 
men. ... I shall make it an object to see the ground I go 
over thoroughly, however limited my stay may be. If I 
stay a winter it will be necessary for me to encroach another 
thousand upon my diminishing property. My pride will 
always prevent me from repairing a small inheritance by 
marriage, unless I can either bring a reputation or a profes- 
sion which will be a match for fortune. It will require time 
to gain either. This puts a home for me far into the future. 
The weather is now summer, very warm. The wildness of 
the Highlands is most interesting in contrast with the rich 
scenes of the South. There are many Grants here. I find 
yet no tidings of the family of my ancestry. The name be- 

116 






EUROPE 

longs to a Peer, the Earl of Seafield, who has large estates a 
short way from the town. It is the name also of a Clan, 
and I shall possess myself of a plaid of the Clan, who have 
each their own." 

From Inverness he turned southward by way of the 
Caledonian Canal, visiting Loch Garry, Fort William, the 
Scotch lakes, Dumbarton, Glasgow, Ayr, Kilmarnock, and 
Dumfries, passing into England again through Carlisle, and 
spending the night of June 25th at Ireby. He was now 
bound for the English lake district. The next day he rambled 
about Keswick and toward evening turned into St. John's 
vale where the "grand mountain scenery, the waterfalls in 
the clefts of the mountains, the lakes and tarns, and the 
wild passes" impressed him strongly. Failing to secure 
shelter at a lonely little hostelry he walked on in the gather- 
ing gloom and about ten o'clock found refuge in the Swan 
Inn, beloved of Wordsworth. He was getting close to the 
heart of rural Britain by his method of travel, which he has 
himself delineated charmingly: 

At night you wander wearily into one of those little, close- 
nestled, gray-thatched country villages far away from the great 
lines of travel, where even the thunder of a post-chaise through its 
single, narrow street is a rare event, where the children stop their 
seeming play to have a look at you, and rosy-faced girls peep out 
from behind half-open doors. A little by itself, with a bench each 
side the door, is the inn of the "Eagle and the Falcon.". . . Here, 
alone, beside a brisk fire kindled with furze, you can watch the 
white flame leaping lazily through the black lumps of coal, and 
enjoy the best fare. . . . Nor is the fare to be spurned. The 
bread may not be as white as in the shops about Whitehall; but it 
is sweet, and the butter is fresh and as yellow as gold. And she 
[the hostess] will cut you a nice rump-steak to broil, and put you 

117 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

down a pot of potatoes, and half a head of a savoy. And she will 
scrape a little horse-radish to dress your steak with, and bring 
you a pitcher of foaming "home-brewed." And if it be in the time 
of summer berries she will set before you, afterward, a generous 
bowl of them sprinkled with sugar, and cream to eat upon them; 
and if too late or too early for her garden stock, she bethinks her- 
self of some little pot of jelly in an out of the way cupboard of the 
house, and setting it temptingly in her prettiest dish she coyly 
slips it upon the white cloth with a little apology that it is not 
better and a little evident satisfaction that it is so good. 

After a dinner that the walk, the cleanliness, and the good will 
of the hostess have made more enjoyable than any one in your 
recollection, you may sit musing before the glowing fire as quiet 
as the cat that has come in to bear you company. And at night 
you have sheets as fresh as the air of the mountains. The break- 
fast is ready when you wish and there are chops, and fresh eggs, 
and toast, and coffee. For all this, you have less to pay than a 
dinner would cost in town; you have the friendly wishes of the 
good woman to follow you, and more than this you see a remnant 
of the simplicity of English country character. 1 

June 27th he went on by Grasmere to Rydal and feasted 
his eyes at last upon Rydal Mount. The evening he spent 
rowing upon Windermere; the night he passed at the Salu- 
tation Inn, Ambleside. Saturday, the 28th, he viewed 
Windermere, Grasmere, and Rydal, and looked away to 
Helvellyn "in sunshine and shade," from the vantage-point 
of a neighboring hill, with Wordsworth's lines recurring to 
him throughout the day. In later years he expanded his 
brief diary entries: 

Here, at last, I was to come into near presence of one of the 
living magicians of English verse — in his own lair, with his moun- 

1 "Notes by the Road," No. 1, American Review (February 1846), 154. 

Il8 



EUROPE 

tains and his lakes around him. But I did not interview him; 
no thought of such audacity came nigh me; there was more modesty 
in those days than now. Yet it has occurred to me since — with 
some relentings — that I might have won a look of benediction 
from the old man of seventy-five, if I had sought his door, and told 
him — as I might truthfully have done — that within a twelve- 
month of their issue his beautiful sextette of Moxon volumes were 
lying, thumb-worn, on my desk in a far-off New England college- 
room; and that within the month I had wandered up the valley 
of the Wye with his Tintern Abbey pulsing in my thought more 
stirringly than the ivy-leaves that wrapped the ruin; and that 
only the week before I had followed lovingly his White Doe of 
Rylstone along the picturesque borders of Wharfdale and across 
the grassy glades of Bolton Priory and among the splintered 
ledges 

" Where Rylstone Brook with Wharf is blended." 

Poets love to know that they have laid such trail for even the 
youngest of followers; and though the personal benedictions were 
missed, I did go around next morning — being Sunday — to the 
little chapel on the heights of Rydal where he was to worship; 
and from my seat saw him enter; knowing him on the instant; tall 
(to my seeming), erect, yet with step somewhat shaky; his coat 
closely buttoned; his air serious and self-possessed; his features 
large, mouth almost coarse; hair white as the driven snow, fringing 
a dome of baldness; an eye with a dreamy expression in it, and 
seeming to look — beyond, and still beyond. He carried, too, his 
serious air into his share of the service and made his successive 
responses of "Good Lord deliver us!" and "Amen!" with an 
emphasis that rung throughout the little chapel. 1 

1 English Lands, Letters, and Kings, 3.302-304. The reader may care to have 
the diary entry from which this passage is derived: "Sunday, June 29th. Attended 
Rydal Chapel in the morning. . . . Commencement of service. Entrance of 
Wordsworth; corner seat; dress; eye; general manner; uttering of responses." In 
the English Lands account of the visit to the Wordsworth country there is a slight 
confusion of dates. 

II 9 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

From the lake district he returned by way of Kendal, 
Bolton Abbey, Harrogate, Sheffield, Northampton, Weston, 
Newport Pagnell, and St. Albans to London, whither he 
arrived July 5th. After five days in London he went through 
Gosport and Portsmouth to the Isle of Wight, where he en- 
joyed four delightful days. While on the island he read Legh 
Richmond's story of The Dairyman *s Daughter •, and visited 
her home near Arreton. "One's highest conception of a 
rural cottage derived from English poetry . . . could not 
find better actual embodiment than in the Dairyman's Cot- 
tage," he wrote in his diary, July 14th. "There was the . . . 
Bible with her name in her own hand, and her prayer-book, 
and at the window the tree of her planting; there was the 
visiting book with names from every Christian nation. How 
very strange ! Here was a poor woman in a poor cottage, 
with scarce any education and no beauty, with nothing 
about her to be envied but her hope; yet the story of that 
hope and its reason and strength not eloquently but truly 
told has drawn hundreds to look at the familiar things of 
her life; to look at her Bible, to see where she sat, where she 
sickened, where she died. Doesn't it speak poorly for the 
prevalence of Christian hope when a single instance in one 
away from the temptations of the world, is the world's 
wonder?" 

Having now completed his first journeyings in the British 
Isles, he was ready for the Continent. An interesting letter 
to his uncle, Walter Mitchell, of Hartford, Connecticut, 
written before departure from the Isle of Wight (undated, 
but evidently written July 14th, 1845), an d a letter to the 
Cultivator summarize the recent travel: 

. . . Since my last to you I have been through England on 
four different routes and have gone through most of Scotland and 

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EUROPE 

Ireland. . . . Through three of the English counties I traveled 
on foot and through all have gone leisurely so that my observation 
has been thorough and widely extended. I have visited all the 
places of interest in or near the chief cities, been through every 
English cathedral of note, visited baronial residences and modern 
palaces, and had picture views from the splendid collections of 
royalty and dukes to the colored lithographs upon the ward rooms 
of a Greenwich hospital. I have heard speeches from Lords 
Brougham, Stanley, Campbell, and Lyndhurst; and have talked 
by the half hour with a farm laborer over a hedge in the beautiful 
county of Westmoreland. I have drunk out of the Giant's Well 
at the Causeway and treated a serjeant of the guard to a stoup of 
ale in the vaults of Edinburgh Castle; but am not yet seduced out 
of regard to the steady habits of home, nor have lost the love of 
that home. Nay, I am at times thoroughly homesick and look 
westward with many fond longings, which the prospect of a winter's 
stay in Italy would nowise tend to diminish. The truth is, it is no 
small matter to be alone some thousands of miles away from any 
face — among millions of faces — that you know. In the cities this 
sense of loneliness is most oppressive, and may drive me to a 
quicker return than I wish. 

I was very sorry to find in your letter no mention of family 
history, by aid of which I might pursue inquiry at Inverness. 
There are many Grants in the neighborhood — two of them in the 
Peerage — the Earl of Seafield and Lord Glenelg. It is the name 
of one of the great northern clans; the motto, "Stand fast." I 
purchased a piece of the Grant plaid and, if my funds will permit 
the outlay, shall order a full Highland suit of the Grant tartan 
before returning. 

Of a proposed stay for the winter, you speak chiefly as regards 
health — certainly the great consideration; yet one in respect of 
which there exists such difference of opinion, even among medical 
men, that perhaps — with proper avoidance of exposure — accident 
is as safe a guide as the dicta of anyone. Still your views will be 

121 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

kept in mind and I shall consult a physician at Paris as suggested. 
If I can meet with any agreeable companion or party — American 
or English — with whom I can establish intercourse to continue for 
the winter, I shall in all probability remain; if not fortunate in 
meeting with some one to relieve the tedium of a winter's residence, 
I shall return. My means pecuniarily are the products of a capi- 
tal of about $10,000, which by my present stay is reduced to $9,000, 
and if I stay the winter will be reduced to $8,000. ... I am now 
ready for La Belle France ', for which I leave two days hence. . . . 

My observation extended over nearly all England — only two 
counties, Shropshire and Norfolk, were unvisited. Through Berk- 
shire, Oxfordshire, Warwickshire, Cumberland, Westmoreland, and 
a large part of Derbyshire, and Berwickshire (in Scotland), I 
strolled on foot. During this pedestrian range of over three hun- 
dred miles, I took frequent occasions to visit the farm houses and 
laborers' cottages along the way; have observed as closely as cir- 
cumstances admitted, the habits of the industrial portions of the 
population, have conversed with them at their simple homes and 
in the fields, and not unfrequently have made trial of their imple- 
ments of husbandry, beside them. Two or three bouts round a 
field in South Devon, I remember going, with my hands to the 
stilts of a crazier plow than I ever saw in the most retired districts 
of New England. Only a month since, I wearied myself to ex- 
haustion with one of the heavy Cumberland scythes which, though 
exceedingly clumsy and ill fitted in every other respect, are of the 
best tempered metal and retain a fine edge. The mower was at 
first unwilling to trust his scythe in my hands; but after promising 
him a six-pence, pour boire, he willingly granted the favor and ad- 
mitted the work to be very fairly done. 1 

On the 1 6th of July he sailed for Havre, visited Rouen on 
the 17th, and reached Paris the night of the 18th, staying at 
the Hotel Meurice. The transition to a country of foreign 

1 The Cultivator (October 1845), 300. Written from Paris, August 1845. 

122 



EUROPE 

tongue was doubtless none too easy. In his diary the entry 
for Saturday, July 19th, begins with the words "Despon- 
dency, homesick, and loneliness. " A fortunate meeting with 
two of his Yale classmates on the same day enabled him to 
shake off his black mood. After a few days he secured lodg- 
ing at $$ Rue Neuve St. Augustin, and remained in Paris 
until August 23d. One of the most charming and charac- 
teristic letters of this entire period of foreign travel he wrote 
from his little eyrie on the fourth story of the Maison 
Leppine to Mrs. Goddard: 

{August 1st, 1845.) — I was thinking this morning, Mary, as I 
finished dressing and drew together the curtains which hide my 
little bed in a niche of the wall and put on my hat and took a look 
into the long mirror over the little marble fireplace, how much I 
should like to stroll down on such an August morning into the 
avenue of old elms that stand round your door, brushing the dew 
away from the short grass, tramping under the honeysuckles that 
blossom in your piazza, and through the grass again and between 
the syringa bushes into the well trimmed or the weedy garden (it 
would matter little which), and sit down on the stone step to the 
summer house, and look and muse, and muse and look. Be sure 
the thought of this does not come to me without accompanying 
thoughts of some rosy faces and some that are not rosy; of kind 
words and none that are not kind; of pattering feet to tread along 
with me; and along with them a bushy-haired, red-tongued, pant- 
ing dog. 

Well, here I am in a Parisian house, living as the Parisians live. 
In Scotland I drank Scotch ale; in Ireland, Dublin stout; in Lon- 
don, porter; and now I drink red and white wine and dine at the 
restaurants. My room is a bedroom, though the curtains hide it. 
Here is a fine mahogany desk on which I write; yonder a table, a 
sofa, an easy chair, and the floor is of waxed oak. Out of the win- 
dow I look into the court with its range of buildings around, and 

123 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

over their tops and down the street the high fronts of the opposite 
houses on every floor of which lives a family. Out of the windows 
in the ridge of the roof an old woman has just hung her dishcloths 
to drip in the next tier; yet upon the roof a woman is brushing 
shoes. Farther below, an old lady, more respectably accounted, 
just now opened the blinds to water some plants that live in a very, 
very narrow bacony. Next below us, no one is yet stirring and 
below farther the buildings hide. I have just tinkled my little bell 
out at the window which is an intimation that I am ready for 
breakfast. In five minutes the servant will bring a tray with 
butter, two eggs boiled, milk, coffee, and the best bread you ever 
saw. This is a French breakfast excepting the eggs which I have 
had the extravagance to add, bringing my charge for dejeuner up 
to one franc and a half. For dinner I wander away either to the 
Palais Royal where I have my bowl of soup, three dishes of meat, 
tart, dessert, and bottle of wine for two francs; or to the English 
roast-beef houses where I revive the recollections of the rich din- 
ners of Britain over beef, ale, and cheese. In the evening I wander 
down into the Tuileries gardens and sit for an half hour watching 
the moving millions under the shadows of the heavy avenues, or 
look at the water sparkling from the fountains under the light of 
a thousand lamps, and grow very poetic until the drums of a corps 
of soldiers give warning of the gates* closing, when I ramble on to 
the Place de la Concorde and stand with my arms folded under the 
column of Luxor and look upon new fountains and new thousands 
and listen to ten thousand sounds, or walk on pushing my way 
through the throng that gathers in the Champs Elysees every 
night in the year to hear such noises and to see such sights as make 
one seem in dream-land. 

Two days since was the great day of the Fete — the last of the 
Three Days of July. You can form no idea of the multitudes. 
Imagine some three or four hundred thousand always moving — 
for the French can never stand still — and always together, women, 
children, dogs, soldiers, and mounted guards: the fun being every 

124 



EUROPE 

year paid for by the deaths of some half dozen who are crushed in 
the crowd. The great show of the day, amid innumerable lesser 
ones, was the fireworks of the evening, accompanied with a con- 
tinuous roar of cannon firing from the Hotel des Invalides, the 
home of the old soldiers of France. I could tell you about red, 
dusky balls of fire shooting up some three hundred feet in the air, 
then bursting with the sound of a musket and sending a shower of 
white globules of fire all over the sky, lighting up the fountains 
and statues and men's faces and colonnades, like day. I could tell 
you of four or five in different parts of the heavens bursting together 
and making the illuminated columns and arches, and even the 
moon and stars as pale as sickness; and could tell you of ten thou- 
sand rockets streaming from every quarter, not dying dully but 
vanishing in a light explosion that sends out green and golden and 
crimson stars that float upon the night air in waves and finally go 
out of sight amid the great wreaths of smoke from the cannon; and 
of beautiful little gondolas with crimson streamers, floating on the 
Seine, which suddenly would burst in pieces and send up showers of 
colored light which, beautiful as it was in the sky, could not com- 
pare with the reflection on the waters. Then there was a mimic 
volcano that spouted for ten minutes hideous torrents of flame 
and smoke half over the heavens and covered with its lurid 

glare the whole. I say if I were to try and describe such 

things they would not give you any idea of what hardly seems a 
reality. 

But a fig for such letter writing ! You ask for description. 
Pray, do you know what a silly request you make? Suppose I 
were to count you the statues in the garden of the Tuileries and 
tell you how many naiads are heaving water out of marble urns and 
how many giants are wrestling upon the tops of pedestals and how 
long an avenue of lime trees stretches as far as you can see from 
the Triumphal Arch down to the Palace and how the other night 
the whole two miles of distance was blazing on either side with 
innumerable lamps that glittered among the leaves and how the 

125 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

windows of the Palace were each one of them a broad sheet of flame 
and how belts of lightning were braided round the huge entablature 
of the Arc de l'Etoile and how from either extremity of this distance 
rockets would flame into the sky and meeting midway just over 
the obelisk of Luxor drop glittering spangles of green and gold — 
pray, would you not tire of it ? 

Whom should I meet the other day — my second day in Paris — 
but two classmates, one of whom I thought safe on his tobacco 
plantation in Virginia and the other immured in the hospital at 
Boston. Yet here they are, and so I meet them everywhere — 
Americans, I mean — who, if not old acquaintances, yet we touch 
hands from knowing common friends. ... I shall stop in La 
belle France till I know so much of the language as to keep my own 
money in my pocket, which at present is not easy. Expenses of 
living here are comparatively small. I pay for room, boot-clean- 
ing, &c, fifteen francs a week ($3); a franc and a half for breakfast, 
three francs for dinner, making some %\o per week. By the by, 
you must manage to find some thin paper for letters, since coming 
to me in the interior of Europe there will be a difference of $1 be- 
tween thick paper and thin on a single letter. Also please give 
them for enclosure with Gen. Williams'. 

. . . You and Uncle Walter will like my determination [to 
remain through the winter]; it will lessen pecuniary resources very 
much: in every other respect I anticipate improvement. You know 
my backward state in everything that regards social intercourse 
and must see there will be more hope of reform in longer travel than 
in shutting myself up at home again. 

... I have written several letters for the Commercial — all of 
them political except one. Have you seen them? I have not 
yet seen the shows proper of Paris, but reserve the pleasure until 
I talk somewhat. Nothing in speaking is so difficult to overcome 
as fear of being wrong; however, I see some little children in the 
court below whom I want to toll up to my room with some candy 
that lies in my drawer and make them my teachers. How come 

126 



EUROPE 

Alfred and Julia on with their writing and does Alfred learn to 
swim these July days and is the hole under the maple deep as ever 
and are they through with haying in the valley and are huckle- 
berries ripe and are the larks plenty in the meadows and is my gun 
growing rusty and do the robins eat the currants and have you 
green corn yet and new potatoes and are the early apples ripening 
and do the thunder showers come over the hill as they used to do 
and does the sun come out and make things look as pretty and 
bright and the robins sing and the crickets hop and the swallows 
twitter and the leaves glisten and the flowers smell sweet as they 
all used to do ? Here is a parcel of questions for Alfred to answer; 
and you see that though in the most city-like of cities, I have not 
forgotten what makes pleasant country life, and it is no secret 
that my heart yearns, and has ever, among all the wonders of art 
for that which art cannot make. 

Is Mrs G[oddard] with you ? My regards to her, if so. She 
must look me out a wife, or does she still think (half right) that I 
ought never to marry? What does Norwich look like now? Are 
the churches done? Elegant, are they not? the whole of both of 
which jammed together could be put through some windows I 
have seen, without raising the window-frames; and as for the tow- 
ers, why they would make a very considerable bit of scaffolding 
from the which to clean the sculpture within the aisles of Notre 
Dame. As for your bit of meeting-house, it would make a martin 
box to put out upon the tower of Rouen cathedral, where, however, 
people in the street below could not distinguish it from the old 
turrets, unless by the color. But I say so much only to give you 
some idea of what an old world this is, and I testify to my patri- 
otism by putting at the end of this jargon a Hurrah for New Eng- 
land ! 

. . . Remember me to your father. I shall have strange 

j things to tell him of whenever I sit down under the piazza with him 

again. But this world is a changing one — who knows we shall 

meet, or if meeting, shall meet there? Mary, when I look back 

127 

I 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

ten years it is always with a sigh and a rising tear, and if I ever 
smile in looking forward the same time, it is a poor, sickly, forced 
smile. 

Remember me to Uncle Perkins, to friends in New London who 
ever inquire about me, if there are any such. Give love and kisses 
to your family, and believe me truly yours, Donald. 

A few passages from a letter of August I3th-i5th, to 
Gen. Williams, may supplement the foregoing: 

. . . Paris increases my admiration as I remain, though it does 
not grow in positive favor. I have no conception of the amount 
of vice that absolutely basks in the sunshine of popular favor. 
Any pretension to morality is the most odd thing in the world. 
In the British cities the grossness of such vice as exists disgusted 
me, and here its generality disgusts. You need not, I think, fear 
my falling very deeply into the habits of the Parisians. Still, it is 
my wish to know here, as I have tried to know elsewhere, whatever 
is very new and strange, though it be at the same time shocking to 
one's tastes. I spend my time in studying the language, in read- 
ing French, in visiting show places, and occasionally an evening at 
some of the theatres — reading the play first, which I find accus- 
toms my ear to the sound. . . . 

When you give my regards to Mr. White tell him I shall come 
home a Democrat, or (as I am really serious) perhaps it were as 
well not known. Observation of the old governments has, as you 
anticipated, thrown out of mind all the lesser distractions of party 
and given a general regard for our whole country and for the prin- 
ciples upon which the government is based; and as a consequence 
has inclined me to the side of those who are most strict and un- 
compromising in the advocacy of those principles. . . . 

Letters and diary enable us to follow him on a round trip 
from Paris which occupied him from August 23d to October 
30th, 1845: 

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EUROPE 

(To Gen. Williams. Hotel des Bergues, Geneva, Sept. 8 th, 
1845.) — • • • My stay in Paris was continued up to the 23d of 
August, my progress in the language being considerable, and suffi- 
cient to admit of my traveling without serious trouble. Fontain- 
bleau I reached by rail and diligence. After looking over its mag- 
nificent palace, I started thence with a Connecticut companion 
[his classmate, Robert W. Forbes], on foot and in pedestrian attire, 
with only a knapsack, for the western borders of France. Our 
first night we passed half way to Sens, the second at Sens, and so 
on for four days; but finding the country uninteresting, took coach 
from Tonnerre to Dole, and thence walked a hundred miles over 
the mountains to this place. The scenes and incidents of the trip 
have been every way pleasing, and the exercise advantageous. 
Our longest day's work was thirty miles, which with a knapsack 
on back weighing twelve or fifteen pounds and over mountain 
roads, is enough. 

I have had the opportunity of seeing not only the face of the 
country; but the agricultural methods, the habits of the peasantry; 
in short, a comparison of the country life of France with that of 
England, and I need hardly say it is much in favor of the latter 
in every respect. 

On Sunday (yesterday) I attended the principal church of the 
Reform principles and the whole appearance both of audience and 
preacher carried my recollections home more forcibly than any 
service I have before attended this side of the water. The manner 
of the speaker earnest and the attention good, offering altogether 
a striking contrast to the mummery of the Catholic churches. 

(To Mrs. Goddard. Geneva, Sunday evening, Sept. 7th, 
1845.) — • • • have walked over the Juras through most magnifi- 
cent scenery to this gem of continental cities. The room in which 
I write is in the fourth story of the Hotel des Bergues and from the 
window I could toss this villainous pen into the waters of the lake, 
waters so blue and clear that I can see the pebbles twenty feet 
down. . . . Beyond the town rise some of the lesser limbs of the 

129 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

Alpine ranges; but the more distant, and chief of all, Mont Blanc, 
have had their heads in the clouds these three days. People of 
every nation and tongue are met together here and one hears at 
table as many languages as he sees dishes. . . . We are, in fact, 
somewhat behind the time for Swiss journeying; but shall have the 
advantage of inns, not crowds — guides disengaged, and perhaps 
a spice of adventure among the newly fallen snows of the passes. 
To-morrow, or next day at farthest, we set out with our shoes 
dressed with hobnails, an overcoat and a water-proof coat added 
to our knapsack, besides a pocket telescope and a brandy flask, 
which, by the way, is a very essential equipment amid the cold 
damps of the mountains. You must not fear my imprudence or 
exposure; so much of walking has given a very reliable amount 
of experience. It is quite impossible to give you any idea of the 
character of the scenery hereabouts, or of the wildness of the pas- 
sage over the Juras. For fifteen miles on Wednesday last we 
descended all the way to the little town of Morez completely im- 
bedded in the mountains, and for fifteen miles the following day 
we as constantly ascended — the road twining along the edge of 
precipices down which we could tumble stones three or four thou- 
sand feet into the valley below. 

. . . Do not expect very frequent or very long letters from me 
while in the heat of these pedestrian adventures; but believe that 
my thoughts wander over the waters to your quiet nook of country 
far oftener than these letters. And do not tell me of all the little 
ills which may be source of disturbance; but of all that is agreeable, 
and of all your hopes. Rare as letters are at this distance, I want 
them to be all sunshine. A little cloud near the sun casts broad 
shadows and the farther off you are the more likely to rest on you. 
Give a gay tone and so will I. 

My French talk is bungling, but makes waiters and shop- 
keepers understand. I hope to improve it in further travel and 
confirm it by practice in the south of France. ... It is difficult 
to seize an hour from the business of travel. The day sees me upon 

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EUROPE 

the road and the night finds me wearied with the day and willing 
to seize upon the first sleeping moments. If in town, all its sights 
are to be seen — the most wearisome to the body of all possible 
employments. 

By my last you will have learned my determination to stop 
this side the water the coming winter; and when I see the beautiful 
fields in this neighborhood amid the most beautiful scenery in the 
world and this city lying among them upon the borders of this 
sweet lake, I feel inclined to wish never to return. If I think thus 
here, what shall I think in Italy? 

{To the same. Valley of Chamouni, Suisse. Hotel de la 
Nouvelle Couronne, Oct. 8th, 1 845.) — It is a rainy day and I am 
fastened in the inn. If it had been pleasant I should have been 
at this hour (n) eight or nine thousand feet above the level of the 
sea traversing the Mer de Glace under the guidance of a couple of 
the valley guides. In addition to the rain, the guide has come in 
this morning to assure us that heavy snow has fallen on the passes 
and that the danger of avalanches will forbid our taking the in- 
tended route for some days. 

Yesterday I was upon the top of the Flegere; to-day there is a 
foot of snow upon it and the hills around are all whited with it to 
within a thousand feet of the bottom of the valley. But you must 
know something of what I have been doing since my writing from 
Geneva. Nearly all of Switzerland has been marched over; its 
highest mountain passes and its most wonderful sights have come 
under trial or observation and we are now looking at the most 
grand objects of all Europe in the immediate neighborhood of 
Mt. Blanc, preparatory to our decampment for the season. 

. . . Our longest walks have been from twenty-six to thirty 
miles and on one occasion, having missed my way and lost my com- 
panion, i was compelled to walk thirty-three miles with my knap- 
sack weighing eighteen pounds, before reaching a stopping place 
for the night. Our highest ascents have been something over 
8,000 feet and we have been most fortunate in weather among the 

131 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

mountains, rarely meeting with fresh snow or rain. From the 
Hospice of the Grimsel, something over seven thousand feet above 
sea-level, we made a detour over the glacier of the Aar, traversing 
the ice for ten miles and taking a dinner of cold goat's flesh and 
wine amid the ice and snows of the highest regions of the Alps. 
Upon the Wengern Alp we slept a night — a few miles distant from 
and in full sight of one of the highest mountains of Switzerland — 
to hear the falling avalanches. Edges of precipices and dizzy 
heights have become familiar things, and dangers that would be 
real at home only make the blood leap livelier amid these mag- 
nificent scenes. . . . 

We had thought of taking the next adventure in point of diffi- 
culty — over the Col de Giant into Piedmont; but find four guides 
would be necessary and expenses of trip some twenty dollars each, 
which is more than can be paid in the present state of our purses 
even for adventure. Still, however, I hope to have something to 
tell of in a small way when I sit by your fire on some Christmas 
visit in years to come. 

The weather is clearing; our guide has come and says we may 
safely go to the Montanvert on the edge of the Mer de Glace. If 
they have ink I will finish my letter in the midst of fresh fallen 
snows and within stone's throw of glaciers that last forever. 
8 o'clock evening. — A beautiful moonlight night with the light 
dancing on all the mountain peaks. I have been to the Mer de 
Glace and am at Chamouni again; through snow six inches deep we 
tramped and the guides have assured us that our visit to the higher 
latitudes would be attended with imminent danger, so we are 
reluctantly obliged to arrange our departure for to-morrow toward 
the Great St. Bernard. The crevices in the glacier, which descend 
to an awful depth, are bridged over with the new-fallen snow and 
a step on them would be fatal. . . . 

The entry in his diary for the 3d of October 1845 begins 
with the words "The day to be remembered by agreement 

132 



EUROPE 

with M. W. G." A letter to Mrs. Goddard written from 
Paris, November 12th, 1845, ma ^es clear the meaning: 

. . . You find me at Paris again. I have already told you of 
my glorious run over the mountains of Switzerland, and left you 
last if my memory is right, in the valley of Chamouni. A subse- 
quent visit to the famous pass of St. Bernard and the coming away 
in a snow storm, struggling through it waist-deep, was the most 
of an adventure that anywhere overtook us and served as the crown- 
ing act of our Swiss travels. Two days were spent at Geneva on 
our return and we took our departure from the old republican city 
on the morning of Saturday, the 18th of October. 

On the morning of Sunday — following the Rhone through scen- 
ery that would have been magnificent to any eyes but those in 
which images of Mt. Blanc and the glaciers yet lingered — we 
reached Lyon, the second city of France. As little like Sunday was 
the day as one of our muster days in New England. We spent five 
days at Lyon. . . . Through Clermont, Limoges, Chateauroux, 
and Orleans, all which the children will find upon the map, we 
journeyed to Paris. Here I have taken rooms again and shall re- 
main probably about a month. . . . 

Meantime, how do you get on at home? Winter is upon you 
again, I suppose, though here there is no sign of it but the falling 
leaves. And Alfred, I suppose, a stout fellow driving about every- 
where, and Julia an inch or two higher at the least and growing 
fast to be a Miss, and Henry trudging about holding by Carlo's 
ears — who by the way must be getting to be an old dog. And I sup- 
pose the dust is thick over the books and the pictures and the guns 
and the poles in the west chamber; and your garden is bare again 
and the light snows begin to fall and the quails to whistle and the 
wood-pile to grow smaller and the winter clothes to be made and 
the hogs to be killed and the mince pies to be mixed and Thanks- 
giving to be talked of and the long evenings to come with their 
books and their blaze and their fun. None of these for me except 

*33 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

in imagination as I kindle up a little fire in my German stove out of 
two or three sticks and draw my chair before it and put my hat 
down upon the bureau under the glass and sit leaning upon my 
little round table and think and think, or look out of the window 
upon the noisy street full of people and omnibuses and carts, the 
shops on each side blazing with light, and above them, rising over 
opposite, the magnificent store houses — story above story — so high 
that I can hardly get a glimpse of the clear, blue sky and its scat- 
tered stars and the moon, which is made pale by the thousand 
lamps in the streets below. 

By and by the great bell of the cathedral of St. Roch, where 
the crowd gathered to see Marie Antoinette go to execution, and 
upon whose steps, that I can see from my window, were killed 
thousands in the last revolution, strikes twelve. I undress and 
jump into my bit of a bed — smaller even than the white bedstead — 
and sleep till 8. There is no little musical voice to come to the 
door and say, ''Uncle Don, Uncle Don, breakfast is ready !" But 
the noise of ten thousand voices and steps wake me and I wander 
away down the street to a cafe filled with little marble-topped 
tables and touching my hat to the woman at the desk I take my 
seat at one of them. Directly, there comes to me a waiter in a 
white apron and says, "Que desirez vous, Monsieur?" I say, 
" Cafe au lait" and he brings me a nice dish of coffee and nice bread 
and butter, but very little of either. I spend an hour over it — 
reading the newspapers and observing the dozens who come and 
go — and after pay[ing] 11 cents for my breakfast and bowing to the 
woman of the dais am in the great streets of Paris again. I am 
looking at the wonders of the great city, which are never wholly 
seen, or I am reading French, or with a friend at his medical lec- 
ture until 5. Then we dine, not in a home way; but in the same 
salon with perhaps seventy others — tables with two only, tables 
with four, and tables with ten — and the waiters serve you to soup, 
bread, three dishes, dessert, and half a bottle of wine, for two 
francs. Going down we find ourselves in the great court of the 

134 



EUROPE 

Palais Royal. No description can convey to you any idea of the 
brilliancy, the jewels, the throngs, the fountains that meet the 
eye at every hand. While I stroll there looking in at the shop 
windows, the richest in the world, bustling among the throng of 
the most thronged part of the most thronged city of continental 
Europe, you are sipping quietly a cup of tea before the stove in 
the long room, Mr. G. opposite, A. one side, J. and H. the other, 
Carlo snoozing before the fire, little dreaming of the sights his old 
master sees. — But it is 4 o'clock; my landlady has just brought me 
in a handkerchief which she took from my hands yesterday to hem 
and for which she insists on receiving nothing — a rare thing. For 
next to vanity, avarice is the controlling element of French char- 
acter. I had my daguerreotype taken in my Swiss costume at 
Lyon, and if I find opportunity will send it you. 

... It occurs to me, Mary, that a year ago the 3d of October, 
as we rode together into Norwich, we talked of our probable 
whereabouts that day a year on. And where were you, and where 
was I? I turn back to my journal and find I was upon the great 
road of the Simplon, between the two miserable towns of Leuk and 
Sion, on foot, with knapsack on back, trudging along the dusty 
way, occasionally met by some English family on their way to 
Italy, occasionally stopping to pick a flower, or to gaze on some 
magnificent view— opening through the hills that border the 
Rhine — of the higher Alps. Sometimes, as we drew near in the 
latter end of the day to the vine-growing countries, we would steal 
a cluster or two from the vineyards beside the way; sometimes 
chat with a chance passerby; and once drew a story from a passing 
soldier of a murder committed only the week before upon that 
very road, and he pointed us out the spot, and told us he was him- 
self in search of the assassin. With the sun two hours high we 
tramped into the village of Sion, a strange town with high old cas- 
tles guarding it now untenanted. We wandered up to them that 
night after a dinner at the Croix Blanche and sat upon a rock from 
which we could see miles along the valley of the Rhone, and over- 

*35 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

look the town, and catch views of mountains, higher than the 
highest at home, that threw long shadows over fir forests and vine- 
yards, and before we left, over the whole plain; for the sun had set 
before we went down to our night quarters, and when we reached 
them, it was bedtime. Such was my 3d October 1845. P rav > 
what was yours? 

. . . And what does your father say about war with England 
and about President Polk? Tell him these wretchedly one-sided 
governments of the old world have nearly made a Democrat of me, 
and what would he say to my going back to the great borough of 
Salem and leasing the old homestead of Mr. Jonathan Hilliard, and 
putting myself under the tutelage of Squire Matthias Baker, and 
being made Squire myself, and creeping along by occasional 
harangues around the anvil at the corner, on rainy days, so as in 
process of time to be made town clerk? Eh, isn't that a prospect 
to make one's eyes glisten even in Paris ! 

I would give a guinea to see such a man as your postmaster, 
Captain H., set down all at once in the middle of the Place de la 
Concorde just at this hour — 8 o'clock by St. Roch. How he would 
open his eyes to see that column of Luxor — a single block of granite 
towering a hundred feet into the air, and the fountains with their 
naiads and nereids and dolphins throwing hogsheads of glittering 
water into the air every moment, and the place itself — bigger than 
his farm — paved with hewn stones, over which thousands are 
tramping every hour, and which is made as light as day by a hun- 
dred brazen lamp-posts higher than his house and the cost of each 
one of which would build him a little palace. How he would 
wonder at the great white horses rearing on the pedestals of stone 
and shaking their manes into the air, yet never changing place; 
for they are hewn out of marble. I fancy the old man would rub 
his spectacles — and so would I, if I wore them. Then there is a 
window I would like to set him before, in the Palais Royal — that 
of the royal victualler. Such apples ! — bigger than your melons 
that grow by the summer house; and such pears ! five would fill 

136 



EUROPE 

your water pail; and there are fresh fish from Scotland, fresh dates 
from Algiers, pomegranates from Sardinia, figs from Cyprus, 
melons from Portugal, fawns from the Pyrenees, grapes from 
Madeira, oranges from Seville, bear's meat from Russia, and 
chamois flesh from the Alps. 

This is a long letter and perhaps will not pay for the reading; 
but it has been well intended, so let not good intentions be unrec- 
ompensed. . . . Remember me to your father and his family, to 
friends in N[ew] L[ondon], a twig of the ear to Alf, a kind remem- 
brance to Mr. G., a kiss to Henry, one on each cheek to Julia, and 
an affectionate good bye to yourself. 

{To Gen. Williams. Paris, Rue Dauphine, Nov. 14th, 
1845.) — • • • We visited nearly every place of interest in Swit- 
zerland and were enabled to extend our observations as voyageurs 
a pied to many a magnificent spot wholly inaccessible to the post- 
ing traveler. We rarely took guides and never mounted a mule. 
Our expenses in consequence were exceedingly light, not averaging 
more than ten francs a day each. We avoided the larger hotels fre- 
quented by English and posting parties, not so much from motives 
of economy as from the fact that in our mountain dresses we would 
hardly be reckoned sufficiently bien tenu for the table d'hote. . . . 
My expenses are, I think, less than those of most, though not so 
little as they ought to be. . . . 

As in Great Britain, he was all along keeping an eye upon 
the countryside and thinking of the aesthetic deficiencies of 
rural life in America. "Its [Geneva's] hedges are like Eng- 
lish hedges," runs one of his Cultivator letters, "and its roads 
like English roads. The tastes of its inhabitants have, too, 
a smack of rurality. There are public walks shaded with the 
richest native trees, or a public garden where the poorest 
may study botany better than in books. When shall we 
have such things ? When we are wiser, surely; and when 

137 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

we are richer, surely — for we shall be richer for having 
them." x 

When next we hear of him, the word is from Italy: 

{To Gen. Williams. Naples, Jan. 14th, 1846.) — ... I 
left Paris about the 20th of December, after the weather had be- 
come unpleasantly cold, in company with a Mr. Foster, of Boston, 
for the south of France and Italy. We were some eight or ten days 
between Paris and Marseilles — stopping a day at Lyon, a day at 
Avignon, a day (Sunday) at Nismes, a day at Aries, and two days 
at Marseilles. Unfortunately, by a fire which consumed nearly 
all my letters at Paris (confined to the upper drawer of my bureau), 
I lost yours containing the address of your old acquaintance at 
Nismes. . . . The town pleased me much and had I not been in 
company, should have been inclined to stop for a month or more. 
The ruins were exceedingly interesting and still more so at 
Aries. ... At 8 o'clock the morning of Jan. 1st, we went on 
board the steam vessel Herculaneum for Genoa. At 2 we went out 
of port and the next evening at 6 reached the beautiful city of 
Genoa, where we passed three days seeing its rich palaces and 
splendid churches. On Monday evening we sailed for Naples in 
the Castor •, stopping at Leghorn long enough to run out to Pisa for 
a sight of its cathedral and leaning tower, and a day at Civita 
Vecchia, and reached this place on Thursday the 8th. . . . We 
have already seen the wonders of the buried cities of Pompeii and 
Herculaneum, and on Saturday climbed up to have a look at the 
burning crater of Vesuvius. No description can exaggerate the 
grandeur of its appearance; twice we were obliged to run for fear 
of the falling fragments of red hot lava which are thrown to a 
prodigious height in the air. . . . 

{Diary. January 9th, 1846.) — . . . ride round to the amphi- 
theater at the other border of the town [Pompeii], of immense size 

x The Cultivator (February 1846), 50. Written from Paris, November 14th, 
1845. 

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EUROPE 

— seats for 25,000 persons ... as we leave the amphitheater the 
sun sets, we take seats, and amid the adieus of the guides, drive 
off in the eye of the violet sky over the Gulf of Naples, and the soft 
moonlight dipping the whole in melted silver, turning now and 
then to see red bursts of flame and fiery stones leaping out of the 
crater of Vesuvius. . . . 

(Diary. January 10th, 1846.) — Up at 7 for Vesuvius. Car- 
riage with . . . three horses ... as far as the little village above 
H[erculaneum]. The day beautiful as June along the bays of 
L[ong] I[sland] Sound. Then we took our mountain guide upon a 
little shag of a pony and continued through narrow streets and 
afterward through vineyards and under branches of figtrees up 
the side of the mountain. As we rise we catch views of the bay and 
the villages along the border, growing more and more extensive as 
we rise to where the rough lava of 18 19 shows its hideous ridges 
covering all the ground save one little oasis where stood and yet 
stands a chapel. Up we toil, Vesuvius growing larger in front, 
the seams in its side deeper, the smoke thicker and heavier . . . 
over the low country the villages dot the broad landscape with 
white and the courier points out the long line of the summer 
palace of the King under the distant hills and Naples is like a nest 
of houses dropped into the edge of the water . . . after an hour 
of rough climbing over the loose pieces of lava we found ourselves 
on the verge of the old crater. At the left, far down, was the great 
gorge of the eruption of 18 19 . . . perhaps a half mile from where 
we stood was the cone of the present crater . . . black save where 
the red lava boiled over the edge or the red masses thrown out of 
its puffing mouth fell upon the pile. Here, too, the sound of the 
explosions first became heard — gruff, muttering, heavy sounds 
succeeded by bursts of fire and the ejection of great red flakes of 
lava a hundred feet in the air. We follow the edge of the old crater 
until we arrive at a good crossing place where we strike boldly 
upon the fissured surface . . . and reach the debris of the crater 

139 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

only a few weeks old. Here the guide drew us together and in the 
thundering of the mountain ordered us to follow him closely and 
to look up to avoid the falling stones. At this there was some 
demurral and the idea of dodging the stone throws of Vesuvius 
with no better dodging ground than the hot and crumbling sul- 
phur and lava upon a steep declivity was no way relishable. But 
the advance of the guide and courier and one or two of the boldest 
gave courage and up we scrambled, not without fearful looks at 
the angry column of fire and smoke, and the thick bursts of lava. 
Five minutes more and we were scarce seventy feet from the orifice, 
a little hard but hot level of lava to stand upon. Nearer the cone 
and just by its edge was a hissing stream of fire keeping the lava 
constantly in fusion about it. . . . The scene was horrific and 
not devoid of danger. A hundred feet into the air the wheezing 
mountain threw the great masses of red lava, bursting as it as- 
cended into a thousand pieces, yet still large enough to come down 
with successive crashes upon every part of the little cone of cin- 
ders. The wind blew the smoke from us and the guide promised 
to assure us in time, of danger. Once or twice as the mountain 
gave a louder bellow the alarm was raised among us and off we 
ran as fast as the rough, hot lava would permit, looking up fear- 
fully at the ten thousand red hot fragments in the sky, nor was 
courage entire when all fell heavily and safely upon the growing 
heaps of scoriae; but with trembling knees and pale faces we gazed 
on the successive heavings of the furnace. . . . Withdrawing still 
farther nearly to the edge of the old crater ... we found a bed of 
sulphur still hot and fuming. From this point, eight miles away 
below upon the plain traced out the few uncovered streets of 
Pompeii and the mammoth amphitheater; from that distant 
point of observation forming some estimate of the agency which 
covered the city in ashes. . . . We turn homeward and com- 
ing to the descent half slide, half creep, a thousand and more of 
feet down the side of the mountain. ... At 6 o'clock we are at 
home. . . . 

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A letter to Mrs. Goddard written from the Piazza di 
Grand Duca, Florence, April 23d, 1846, summarizes in a 
pleasing way: about three months of travel: 

. . . You see I am at Florence, the most beautiful city of 
Italy, having left Rome ten days since, after the close of the great 
ceremonies of Holy Week. Six days were spent on the way travel- 
ing by vetturino, in company with three other Americans, one 
Frenchman, and two Venetians. The country passed over, after 
leaving the desolate Roman Campagna, was as beautiful as a 
dream. There was Mont Soracte, and the falls of Terni {vide 
Byron's description), and the Lake Thrasimene (Macaulay), and 
the vale of Clitumnus {vide Byron and Macaulay), and Arezzo, the 
birthplace of Petrarch, and everywhere sweet, rich, cultivated 
valleys and fine old castellated towns, and rivers green and clear 
as emerald, and mountains blue and shadowy as fairyland, and 
atmosphere that set one sleeping despite the beauty. 

But you want to know what I was doing at Rome the three 
months I was there. First came the Carnival, which filled a week 
with as much amusement as could be crammed into a week; then 
St. Peter's, a work for a month's looking; then the Vatican, and 
the ruins, and the capitol, and the galleries, and the three hundred 
churches, not one of which but would be a wonder in Connecticut; 
and occasional study of Italian; and afterward a week's ramble on 
foot among the Apennines thirty miles from Rome with knapsack 
and stick and guide; and after that the gorgeous ceremonies of 
Palm Sunday and Easter, in which more cloth of gold is worn than 
would clothe every man, woman, and child in your town; and the 
Miserere performed by the Pope's choir in a way that brings tears 
and makes one think he hears the hosts of heaven bewailing the 
event which the occasion commemorates. Then there was the illu- 
mination of St. Peter's with 5,000 lamps — 2,000 bursting into a 
flame in a moment and making the sky seem on fire; the evening 
after, the fire-works, in which among other small combustions, 

141 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

6,000 rockets of different colored lights are sent into the sky at one 
moment. And yet the day after [there] was a balloon ascension in 
the park of the most beautiful of the Roman villas, in which (the 
park) were assembled 10 to 12,000 of the men and women of every 
country of Europe. 

Madame de Stael, I believe it is, says that Rome is the drawing 
room of Europe. It is very true, and at the churches and the 
galleries and the promenades may be seen the pick and the fashion 
from the family of the Emperor of Russia (whose traveling house- 
hold consists of the moderate number of two hundred) to the small 
counts and baronesses from Tuscany and the Rhine; and at the 
Hotel d'Angleterre where I spent my first week in Rome, one-third 
were princes, and more than half titled nobility of England, of 
Russia, of France, and Germany; nor are they too much unlike the 
rest of the world to escape being talked to: for three days a German 
baron and myself kept up a rambling conversation in French at 
the table d'hote^ and an Italian count at my room has taught me 
more Italian than my teacher. And now I jabber in Italian better 
than in French. 

Thirty pages are blackened in my note-book with jottings on 
my trip in the Apennines and a great many more with Carnival and 
Holy Week at Rome. You know I had always a sort of wish to 
lose myself under the great roof of St. Peter's and I have done it. 
There was no disappointment; but the wonder grew upon me each 
one of the thirty times that I wandered about it, and now [that] I 
have left it, it seems vaster than ever. I have seen 6,000 people in 
it and no more appearance of a crowd than your three children 
would make trotting up the aisle in your Salem meeting house. 
Groton Monument might be set down upon the pavement within 
and not reach the roof, and the spire of the new Trinity at New 
York, if put under the dome, would not serve for ladder long enough 
to dust the magnificent mosaics of its panels. To loiter under such 
ceiling; to hear the Miserere in such a place, and see a thousand sol- 
diers in different uniforms, and sixty cardinals in furs and velvets, 

142 



EUROPE 

and the Pope in robes of satin, and his officials in silks, and his 
guards in the richest uniform of the world, and the stars of every 
order of nobility, and the insignia of embassage from every court 
of Europe, and to feel the presence of the place — is one of those 
experiences which may be remembered, but can never be told of. 

But here I am — opposite the stern old palace of the Grand Duke 
that has seen slaughter enough to make the gloomy windows spout 
blood — and below it the place, and the fountains, and the arcades 
running off to the Arno. ... It is three o'clock and I must go 
and have a look at the Cathedral before dinner. 

8 o'clock. I have seen it, and it is a glorious old temple; but 
what can be said after seeing St. Peter's ? . . . 

However much the young man admired the outward 
splendor of the exercises of Holy Week, he was not without 
his own private opinions, some of which he confided to his 
diary: 

(April 5th, 1846.) — Palm Sunday. . . . I found my way home 
to write this before the crowd left, tired of the inanities of that 
service which commemorates a great date in the life of the Savior — 
his entry into Jerusalem. He rode upon an ass; the Pope passes on 
the shoulders of men on a gilt throne and in gilt robes such as 
Christ never wore and never will wear till he judges Pope and 
beggar. It may all be well, this show of the high priest of the 
Church — who knows ? The first temple the Jews built was a rich 
one and God directed its building, and the Levites wore rich robes 
and God appointed them. Yet Christ was born in a manger and 
John the Baptist, who came to tell of him, wore the skins of wild 
animals. Which is the better, the Levitical or the Christian prac- 
tice? And what boots either in view of living for the future so as 
to make that future what each one wishes it may be — happy? 
Six thousand years are gone, and the rest are going; millions of 
men are gone to their graves and the rest are going, and there will 
be an end. And to that end all look forward — some gaily, some 

143 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

fearfully, some doubtingly, some carelessly, some frequently, some 
seldom; but they all look, they all must look; for it will be so near 
that they can see nothing else except they look back, which they 
certainly will do, and if they can look back calmly, they can look 
forward calmly. There will be a great many colors behind to look 
at; there will be only these two before — white and black. Chemists 
say all colors well mixed make white; colors badly mixed make 
black. Who mixes his colors well will then see light behind and 
light before; who mixes his colors ill, will see blackness behind and 
blackness before. 

From Venice he wrote to Gen. Williams, May 23d, 1846: 

You find me under the Austrian flag: five days here and four at 
Milan I have been under its protection. ... I am now alone and 
unless I fall in with some one on the way, shall continue alone. . . . 
You know that this is a city founded in the water, and as such is 
exceedingly curious. The splendor, however, is gone by, its no- 
bility ruined, or dependent upon the mercies of Austrian despotism. 
Its decaying palaces and crushed aristocracy tell a sadder tale of 
time's changes than can be learned elsewhere in Europe. The 
Austrian Government is lenient and yet severe: it builds the people 
churches and theaters, but denies them all offices of trust; it gives 
them the best of music for their amusement, but denies them all 
liberty of thought. . . . 

... it is more difficult to find a proper companion than you 
would suppose. I have met many [people] who have made me blush 
for my country. You will have heard with indignation of the de- 
camping of our old consul at Rome, leaving $3,000 of debt behind 
him. Our system of consul making and consul paying is a vil- 
lainous one. Without salary, they are obliged to fleece traveling 
Americans — many of them poor artists — for a support. And after 
all, [they] throw shame on the country. 

My views in regard to politics are more firmly fixed in the direc- 
tion heretofore hinted to you. You know me better than to sup- 

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EUROPE 

pose I would favor the insolence of any particular member of 
Government. But seen from this distance, there appears a unity 
of design and purpose in Democratic measures more consistent 
with our Declaration of Independence and its burthen than in the 
wavering, various, and merely negative aims of the opposite 
party. Besides, observations here are convincing as to the fact 
that the spirit. of our Democracy, though it may be somewhat 
tainted by radicalism, is the progressive spirit of the age and ulti- 
mately will be the triumphant one. . . . 

{Diary. June nth, 1846.) — . . . Impressions upon the 
whole of Berlin wholly unfavorable. Its streets less orderly and 
less beautiful than the better part of American cities; the pave- 
ment of the worst description except in the Unterlinden; the trot- 
toirs for the most part formed of the same round, sharp pebbles as 
the streets; the shops, with the exception of a few of the fancy 
iron-work and Paris modes and soldiers* equipments, of inferior 
description; the private mansions low and without any of the mag- 
nificence of the Vienna houses; the streets not wearing the same air 
of bustle and business, and everything betokening the presence of 
that military supremacy which reigns here to the exclusion of free 
commercial or free social action. The mirth finds its being in the 
soirees and operas; the business is centered in parades and the 
making of epauletry. The days when a Frederick the Great could 
make a soldier's coat the passport to everything that human vanity 
and human ambition desire, are gone by. Conquering is done by 
diplomacy and not by the sword; yet the Prussians, forgetting the 
lapse of time that has so altered the condition of these things, still 
wear the scabbard while the sword is gone, and with their martial 
music, which is the best in the world, and with their military exer- 
cise, which is faultless, they honor their greatest monarch by dis- 
honoring themselves. If Prussia was a camp to supply the world 
with armies, they could do no better; as it is, they could do no 
worse. 

H5 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

The 29th of June saw him in Antwerp, his face turned to 
Paris, his thoughts toward America. The following para- 
graphs are from an Antwerp letter of June 29th to Gen. 
Williams: 

. . . My route since Venice has lain through Trieste, a bustling 
commercial town; Vienna, after Paris, the finest city of Europe; 
Berlin, Prague, Dresden, Hamburg, Bremen, Amsterdam, Haarlem, 
and Rotterdam. I have made acquaintances along the route, of 
all nations, and traveled agreeably. I have seen much and I trust 
improved by the observations made. 

... It is now the bustling season — everyone traveling, inns 
and railways full. All tongues are busy with our war and the fall 
of the English Ministry. I am obliged to defend the best way I 
can our assumed position with Mexico, which I must say is looked 
upon very much like a wolf and lamb state. 

The passing of the Corn Bill is the occasion of rejoicings and 
illuminations all over Britain and will be to some extent in America. 
I visited Bremen and Hamburg chiefly from the fact of our growing 
commercial relations with those countries, and called upon and 
conversed with the consuls at each. . . . 

I had the good fortune to pass Berlin and Leipsic on the occa- 
sion of the great Saxon wool market, to which buyers come from 
every quarter of the world, and as I strolled upon the Bourse at 
Berlin in my white traveling chapeau, I was addressed by a mer- 
chant who had taken me for an English wool buyer. ... At 
Vienna I called upon our Minister, Mr. Stiles, and also upon Mr. 
Norris, of Philadelphia, who has there a large manufactory of 
locomotives and who kindly showed me over his establish- 
ment. . . . 

{Diary. July 3d, 1846.) — . . . there are . . . very nice 
German people, as everybody knows, and hard students who 
fight duels and smoke pipes for recreation; but one does not see 
this class in traveling, for they are too poor to travel, and it is 

1 46 



EUROPE 

necessary to judge by what one does see — laying aside those with 
ribbons in their button-holes, who are more than half, and who 
hold their heads so high that there is no way of a small man's form- 
ing an opinion. . . . However, the Germans are a social people; 
that is to say, a hearty people. It is surprising with what good 
will they eat their dinners and never mind the small ingenuity of 
using their fingers for forks or toothpicks. They have energy for 
grubbing either at Greek roots or a duck bone; for I know the pro- 
fessors do the first, and the man next me at table did the last. 

But as fpr other energy, the energy that prompts to manly 
independence and self government — they had rather smoke, or eat 
stewed cherries, or learn Latin than to trouble themselves with it; 
and here in this town of Frankfort, calling itself a free town — it 
might as well call itself the sun in the heavens — Austrian and 
Prussian soldiers are posted at the corners, and they close the gates 
of the city and fire the guns, while the vigorous and stalwart young 
men of Frankfort sit before coffee and puff tobacco smoke ! What 
sort of freedom is this ? There are nice streets and shops and books 
to read; but an old idiotic Emperor of Austria, who does not know 
whether the United States is in North or South America, sends 
bewhiskered ignoramuses with guns to parade the streets and keep 
the free people of Frankfort as he chooses they should be kept. 

What can the soul of a young man be made of in this nineteenth 
century, which, when disciplined by study, enlightened by history, 
and spurred by ambition, can smoke pipes and laugh and crack 
jokes year after year in the face of such mummery as this? Is it 
true philosophy to live abased when resistance to the power that 
debases would be vain ? I do not decide for others; but I do know 
if I were a German some conditions would change themselves, or 
else I should go to spend some years in the prison of the State. 

What a glorious contrast that government of ours ! Whatever 
its defects, and they are many; with all the troubles that insurrec- 
tion of popular and uneducated wishes may involve us in; with all 
the disrepute that popular fanaticism may subject us to; there is 

147 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

something inexpressibly glorious in the thought of your being equal 
in exercise of power to your fellow; no bounds to chafe against that 
you in common with others have not set; no princely hierarchy to 
throw in the shade by its unreal splendors all that genius and all 
that patience can accomplish; no ribbons and spurs to supersede 
homespun, if it be directed by energy; if it be pushed forward with 
zeal. Think of trying to be [a] diplomatist of original and philo- 
sophical design in the face of such a man as Metternich ! A man 
might as well propose a ball in a salon lighted by the sun at noon, 
in place of having it under the gaslights of night. There is no 
room for effort; there is no encouragement for exertion. Talent 
all goes in direct channels to work upon society; poetry goes to 
Fausts and devils; patient ingenuity to philology; professional en- 
deavor to medicine and the natural sciences; conversation to 
fashion and scandal. There are no Burkes; there are no Pitts; 
there are no Peels; there are no Websters in Germany — and when 
will be? . . . 

(Diary. July 4th, 1846.) — . . . Hunt two hours for boots — 
find everything else — eight saddlers — twenty haberdashers — 
twenty book-shops- — two boot shops only, each with three pairs — 
am directed as a special favor to the best in the town, a court over 
which hangs a faded painting of a boot — a dirty court in which were 
two little children playing who ran away up a dirty stairway where 
I did not dare to follow, so I was obliged to go to Mayence to buy a 
pair of shoes. Pray, what do the women of Frankfort do ? They 
either make their own shoes, or else they go to Mayence to buy 
them. . . . 

{Diary. July 10th, 1846.) — The great and glorious Rhine is no 
longer a dream land. I half regret it, since the image in my mind 
was by half more beautiful than the reality. All has now a defini- 
tiveness of aspect; the mountains cannot grow higher, the castles 
richer, the waters purer, as they could before I saw them. But 
what then ? Shall knowledge not be gained, because in possession 

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EUROPE 

it seems smaller than in anticipation? It still seems great to 
those who have it not, and they are most; therefore it is great. If 
I had considered all I have gained in a year, in a mass beforehand, 
I would have thought it great. Now it seems small, though it is 
the ability to speak two new languages, the acquaintance with six 
capitals and six new nations of the world, and the sight of the most 
glorious works that human art has ever accomplished. 

His last letter from Europe was written from the Place 
du Louvre, Paris, to Gen. Williams, July 28th, 1846: 

. . . You may have felt a little anxiety lest I might have been 
too near the late railway catastrophe. My arrangements brought 
me over the road just three days after the accident, while they were 
yet removing the debris of the broken carriages. My feelings at 
leaving Europe for home are very peculiar. Of course, I have a 
strong desire once more to see old friends and live over old 
scenes; but you know, my dear Sir, as well as I can tell you how 
the rich and strange and varied sights of European life charm the 
young mind whether of a mere observer, of a pleasure seeker, or 
of one anxious to gain information on every subject connected 
with actual life. America is the place to make money; Europe is 
the place to spend it. America is the place for a poor man; but 
Europe is eminently the place for a rich one. 

There are, however, other objects in this life of ours besides 
making money, and besides spending, and that is what the Euro- 
pean is too apt to forget. There is no ground for his ambition to 
work upon; there is no field open for his enterprise, and it is this 
favorable contrast for our country that annihilates my regret at 
leaving Europe. I could have wished to have seen and learned 
more abroad; but I shall have the satisfaction of knowing more 
than many, and what is better of knowing enough, if properly 
used, to be of influence at home. . . . 

I hope to find you well and as comfortably situated as when I 
left. It is very hard to realize that in forty or fifty days I shall be 

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THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

looking on the scenes amid which I was born. Life has been to me 
for two years such a succession of changes that it seems to me as if 
life always would be but the succession continued, nothing certain 
and positive in it except the great change at the end. . . . 

He bought his last note-book at Paris on the 15 th of July, 
and began the entries with the following: 

Probably my last book, and this, if filled, must be filled with 
reflections on what has been already seen, or with passages on 
water; if taken by a privateer, it might make a rich volume. 
These little books, of which this is No. 5, in prices and character 
typify the nations of whom they were bought. The first, stout 
English, good paper, good binding, and a price not too high, firm, 
substantial, and no trickery. The second, from Geneva, shows 
imitation of the English, but at a distance; paper and binding 
gross, but price fair. The Genevese try to do well and are gaining 
by trying. The third is Roman; as such is just fifty years behind 
the age. One would have found such books in Paternoster Row in 
the year of our Lord 1796. The price moderate, because of a class 
not so often sold at Rome as to be allied with Italian trickery; 
that is to say, the Italians are taught by the demands of strangers 
to cheat, and what is not subject to strangers' demands is not sub- 
ject to cheatery; and that cheatery is only a habitude like washing 
the face in the morning, and which the Italian thinks infinitely 
more harmless. The fourth was bought at Berlin, where people do 
not write, but play on the fife. It is not ruled; not because there 
are no rulers, but because the rulers are military rulers who rule 
men's thoughts before they are put in books, and not men's books 
before they put down thoughts. 1 It was not high, because a sale 
is rare and the demand small. The fifth is this, between the Eng- 
lish and Geneva, but older than both, showing that the propor- 

1 "The best book that could be found in Berlin. The capital of one of the largest 
powers of Europe, and no ruled blank-book to be found in it ! To five shops I went, 
but without success." (Diary. June 12th, 1846.) 

I50 



EUROPE 

tionate demand for such things is less at Paris than at either 
Geneva or Liverpool. It was inordinately high, in conformance 
with the uniform and principled trickery of the French shop- 
keepers, who, if they did not cheat strangers and could not detect 
strangers to cheat would be as good as no shopkeepers at all, and 
not fit to walk the boulevards Sunday afternoons, or to say mass at 
San Roque. But adieu, all of you ! My next will not smell of the 
Mersey at low tide, nor of the glacier water of the Rhone at 
Geneva, nor scent of the Corso in the Eternal City, nor of the 
camp-fighters of the city of Frederick the Great, nor of the cos- 
metics of the city of cosmetics in thought and cosmetics in action; 
but of the fragrance of a country beyond the water, fresh be- 
cause new; but growing great, and growing great so fast that ten 
to one I may be cheated worse on the Schuykill or in Broadway 
than on the Unterlinden or Rue de la Paix. 

On the afternoon of August 2d, 1846, he left Havre on 
the sail-vessel Burgundy, with only three cabin passengers in 
addition to himself. "Now," he recorded in his note-book 
that evening, "I felt really for the first time bound for home. 
Europe with all its strange and attractive sights was indeed 
left. Again I was to live in what was to me the old world of 
business and of soberness. A bright two years have gone by 
in a wonderful world of which the recollection will haunt me 
forever and possibly some day draw me back to it. I am 
sure I shall wish it. Venerable old Europe, with its compa- 
nies of nations, its relics of ages, its memories of battles, its 
fountains of literature, its treasures of art ! Who can help 
loving it ? Who can help wishing to wander over its scenes 
of glorious story, and having wandered over them once, who 
can help feeling a new sort of fellowship that will make his 
heart yearn even as toward a departed friend ? I know I 
shall dream of the Coliseum, and night-walks around the 

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THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

column of Antoninus and the Arch of Titus, and the fire like 
a red streak of the sky lifting out of Vesuvius at night, and 
the blue glaciers of Chamouni. And the little inns among 
the Apennines will scatter themselves over the surface of 
whole years of recollection like the lighthouses and head- 
lands that stand out of the water longest in putting to sea. 
Spite of its troubles and vices, who that has been there can 
help loving Europe ? And who does not like going home ? 
And so, between some passing regrets at leaving the Old 
World, and bright hopes and wishes and expectations to find 
again the New, I snuff up the west wind and the salt air with 
a cheerful spirit." 

Elsewhere he has told how he watched the fading shores 
of France "until the night stooped down and covered them. 
With morning came Sky and Ocean. And this petted eye 
which had rioted in the indulgence of new scenes each day, 
for years, was now starved in the close-built dungeon of a 
ship — with nothing but Sky and Ocean. Week followed 
week — still nothing but Sky and Ocean: — before us — behind 
us — around us — nothing but Sky and Ocean. But — thanks 
to this quick-working memory — through the livelong days 
and the wakeful nights my fancy was busy with pictures of 
countries and the images of nations. Yet ever, through it 
all . . . the burden of my most anxious thought was drift- 
ing like a seabound river — homeward." 1 

The voyage was long. Donald relieved the tedium by 
observing closely everything and everybody on the vessel, 
by filling his note-book with sketches for later revision, by 
reading, by preparing a number of articles for the American 
Review, and — when the tedium overcame and rough weather 
drove him to the shelter of his berth — by wandering in fancy 

1 Fresh Gleanings, 399. 
152 



EUROPE 

among the strange and brilliant scenes which he had left 
behind, or treading once more his favorite paths in Elmgrove 
valley. Once the captain entertained the four cabin passen- 
gers with a story of a man lost overboard, which found its 
way into Donald's note-book and later formed one of the 
most effective portions of the Reveries, 1 The note-book con- 
tains, also, the information that on the 19th of August 
Donald caught a butterfly; "but," he observed, "it was 
doubtless born on board." It led the mind beyond seas, 
however, wherever its birthplace ! "Even it," continues the 
entry, "proves a diversion and leads our discourse into the 
country beside running waters and under cool trees. I never 
shall shake off my love for the country; but shall now with 
arms open [go] toward her, and meet her features and gaze on 
them as on a mother, for she has been a mother to me in the 
rich consolations she has afforded. If a man could only 
throw aside this ungainly ambition which like a giant 
controls his finer resolves, how might he not luxuriate 
in the kingly pleasures of country retirement!" Lack 
of exercise was keenly felt. "I never could live without 
exercise," runs an entry (August 21st); "the country for 
me!" 

At length the slow days brought the Burgundy near to 
American shores, and as Donald realized that soon he would 
be greeting old scenes and old friends, that strange aloofness 
which marked his nature — a peculiar compound of shyness, 
sensitiveness, and timidity — began to rise to the surface of 
his consciousness. It is a state of mind that can be fully 
understood only by those to whom it belongs by nature. 
Under date of September 9th — two days before reaching 
port — this entry occurs in the note-book: 

1 See pp. 175-178. 

*S3 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

... A stern Northeaster . . . blows us on; but ah ! it brings 
to my mind for the first time those cruel New England winds 
which for two years now I have not felt. They bring up cheerful 
images of firesides at home; but they bring up also visions of colds, 
sickness, and death. Our climate is the nursery of sickness. I fear 
I will have to leave it, even without the further trial of a single 
winter ! — In the evening of last night I dreamed of home, and 
the dream, true to all human hopes, disappointed my expectations. 
I found friends not looking as well as I had hoped, and not so glad 
to see me as I had hoped, and even the scenes in nature which had 
been dreamland to me for two long years seemed to lose their 
charms as they opened up to the bodily eye. It was as if autumn 
had overtaken summer in the middle and the paths were filled with 
withered leaves; the summer birds and summer flies, 

Tbv \d\op a \a\6ea(ra f rbv evirrepov a irrepoeaaa^ 
Tbv %4vov a %eiva y rbv Oepivbv depivd — 

Fellow prattlers, winged both, both visitants together, 

had taken their departure. None but croakers of the falling year 
stirred among the branches; decay had stamped its sickly look 
upon the flowers, and the perfumes were dying perfumes. Harsh 
winds sighed and whistled, and there were doors off their hinges 
that slammed in the sad currents. Rust had gathered on my cher- 
ished fowling-pieces, and mould and dust accumulated thick 
on the volumes I had been used to read with so much delight. 
Even the door of the chamber opened with a sad creak. They 
had lighted fires within, for there was not warmth enough in 
heaven's sun. Even my old dog, Carlo, had forgotten me, and 
when I called him to me in the same way I used to do, he wagged 
his tail as if with sympathy; but slunk away — and he ran away 
frolicking to another voice that I did not know. At this last 
proof of change, I dreamed I threw myself in[to] my old chair and 
in the bitterness of my thoughts cried like a child ! Heaven grant 
these things be not so ! Yet such is this world and all its hopes ! 

154 



EUROPE 

On September 1 1 th, 1 846, after a voyage of forty days — 
the longes* he was ever to experience — he stepped ashore in 
New York. "Shall I say," he wrote in his note-book that 
evening, "what struck me most by force of contrast with 
what I had left ? It was . . . the incivility of the porters 
and cabmen; the lack of order; the poor and dirty pavements; 
the low and meager houses; and even Trinity, when we were 
against it, seemed nothing. But this will wear off." He had 
left America almost two years before, a provincial — an edu- 
cated provincial, it is true; but a provincial, none the less. 
He was now returning with soul expanded and enlarged and 
spirit aflame with the inspiration caught by contact with 
the Old World civilization. From a state of semi-invalidism 
he had passed to one of comparatively firm health. Yet a 
young man — but recently turned of twenty-four — with such 
expansion of soul and restoration of health, he turned to face 
the problems and the duties of the future. 



155 



THE UNSETTLED YEARS 



VI 

LAW AND LITERATURE 

The last scene of summer changes now to the cobwebbed ceiling 
of an attorney's office. Books of law, scattered ingloriously at 
your elbow, speak dully to the flush of your vanities. You are 
seated at your side desk, where you have wrought at those heavy, 
mechanic labors of drafting which go before a knowledge of your 
craft. — Bream Life, 190-19 1. 

I have no vulgar ambition, I trust, merely to be the author of a 
book; had far rather never be heard of, than be the author of a 
poor book. Still, have a most worrisome ambition to be the author 
of a good one. — D. G. M. in letter to his uncle, Walter Mitchell 
(1845). 

No sooner had Donald arrived in America than the ques- 
tion of what to do became insistent. It had long been 
troubling him. While yet in college he began to foresee that 
his uncertain health would probably make it impossible for 
him to follow the plans and ambitions which he most cher- 
ished. The problem pursued him across the Atlantic. 
"Kind wishes follow me, I am vain enough to feel, as these 
six letters on my table by last steamer testify," he wrote 
from Liverpool to Gen. Williams (January 24th, 1845). 
"But there is this drawback, that they give poignancy to 
the regrets that I have not health for the fulfillment of 
every reasonable desire; and cannot pluck courageously old 
Father Time by the forelock while he is present." Over and 
over the vexing question revolved itself in his mind. "What 
my pursuit will be in the event of an early return is . . . un- 

159 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

certain," he wrote to Mrs. Goddard from Jersey (March 20th, 
1845). "All intentions toward a profession will be given up. 
Business and a farming life — but not at Salem— will divide 
the suffrages. If a good opportunity to enter business 
offered, I should undoubtedly lay hold of it; or, on the other 
hand, if I was in possession of a good farm near town, or 
could make a good purchase, my decision would fall that way. 
In either case, previous habits would forbid my forgetting 
that the English language is read from left to right, and that 
writing characters belong to it, as well as the italics." Four 
days later he was writing to Gen. Williams on the same sub- 
ject: "Of my course after returning it is impossible to speak 
with any certainty. Thoughts of a profession will have to be 
abandoned, or else all hopes of health; in such dilemma, I 
think it will be my duty to abandon the profession. Busi- 
ness and farming will remain to divide my opinions. The 
last is almost a guaranty of health; the first a doubtful 
promiser. My own yearnings are for a country life, and 
much as I have seen in England of the splendor of pro- 
fessional attainments and the magnificence of commercial 
enterprise, I have seen still more to fasten upon me the love 
of country beauties and enjoyments. If I should pursue 
business it would be out of regard to the wishes of friends 
and in the hope of rendering any pecuniary successes which 
might be attained subsidiary to those employments which 
lie nearest my heart." And again on the 16th of April he 
addressed Gen. Williams: "You do not speak of my proposal 
to sell the farm at Salem. I must not think of amusing my- 
self there again. I want future employment, whatever it be, 
to count on the resources of after life. I feel much as if I 
had been dilly-dallying for years, and as if it were time to 
act." 

160 



LAW AND LITERATURE 

Moods of depression frequently came over him, rendering 
decision still more difficult and paralyzing the desire for 
action. When the news of Lucretia's death reached him in 
Jersey, he grew despondent. "My cough has not returned 
since crossing the Channel," he wrote to Gen. Williams 
(February 23d, 1845), " Dut I never shall be able to do a 
man's work. If I see the age of thirty, it will only be from 
extremest care and prudence. Life, indeed, has little charms 
for me; the wish to live to do good is not so distinct as it 
should be; and all the friends who would have watched my 
course with affectionate pride, or interest, are gone. ,, Such 
moods were strengthened by the sense of isolation which he 
experienced during his absence in Europe. A young man of 
his temperament needed the understanding sympathy of 
warm-hearted friends; without it, he had to suffer alone and 
fall back upon the resources of his own soul. One of his 
note-book entries during his residence in Paris (November 
1st, 1845) gi yes some notion of the thoughts that too often 
oppressed him: 

All the world intent upon their peculiar business. I alone with- 
out it ! When, when will it be otherwise? Here am I this Satur- 
day night, alone, worrying myself with thoughts about the future— 
the deep, the sure, the swift-coming, the all-swallowing future. In 
the gayest capital of the world, with all around me so gay that vice 
is bliss, and suffering conquered, and life a fete, and smiles every- 
where, and tears nowhere, I am alone sad — not a brooding sad- 
ness; but a sadness occasioned by thoughts of opportunities mis- 
improved, and most of all, ambition ungratified. Oh ! if I had 
only friends to chide inaction as a mother or a father or a sister 
might do it; to applaud conquests of difficulties as they only could 
do it, my life might possibly be different, and my actions sometime 
tell the story of my life. As it is, the future of that life is like a 

161 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

book tight-closed, with leaves tight-pressed together. It will re- 
quire energy and strength to lift them, and when turned over they 
may turn out after all but blank pages. Heaven grant it be not 
so ! 

As he studied himself more carefully he came to see that 
in all probability his future course would need to be deter- 
mined in some degree by the necessities of his nature. He was 
beginning to understand that his character was attaining 
permanence, and he was finding in it quite enough to occa- 
sion dissatisfaction. "I do not believe many men live who 
could content themselves alone so well as I," he wrote to 
Gen. Williams from Sheffield, England (July 3d, 1845). 
And in response to some remonstrance of his guardian upon 
his backwardness, he could only reply (July 15th, 1845): 
"I regret more on friends' account than my own, a native 
indisposition and unfitness for society. ... I am, I fear, 
too old to change my course of life." In discussing the sub- 
ject with his uncle, Walter Mitchell, he analyzed his nature 
more fully. "Gen. Williams," he wrote (July 14th? 1845), 
"is almost resentful of my neglect to push myself into so- 
ciety, and you will regret it as much as he. There seems to 
lie upon me native repugnance and native disqualification 
for polite intercourse. Not that I deem myself boorish in 
tastes or in sentiment; but wholly inapt for those outward 
forms which fashion has decided should be the representatives 
of a gentleman. I wish I could overcome my weakness and 
my unfitness for my friends' sake, more than my own. You 
well know my early separation from home, and my contin- 
ued separation from all the charms of a social life; and I fear 
it may have an influence upon my future life which will re- 
quire a prodigious and constant exertion to counteract. If 
my tour had been made as one of a party — in all whose 

162 



LAW AND LITERATURE 

schemes of pleasure I must necessarily have participated — it 
would have helped me to such exertion wonderfully; and the 
falling in with such party might retrieve past errors. You 
will give me credit for frankness in thus putting the knife to 
my own gangrene." Sometimes he was unsparing — almost 
unmerciful — in self-analysis and self-portraiture, though in 
all likelihood rather enjoying the ludicrous quality of his 
characterization. "And now," he wrote from Jersey to Mrs. 
Goddard (March 20th, 1845), "would you really have me 
come back, and — to Salem ? What ! that strange, unman- 
nerly, unsocial, unfeeling, heartless, and tongueless toad 
squat again in your west chamber !" 

The call of Salem — whose memories had followed him 
along every mile of European travel — was too strong to be 
resisted; the old scenes must needs be revisited, the old paths 
trodden again, the final separation postponed. After arriv- 
ing in New York, he lingered only a few days in the city with 
friends, and then hurried to Salem, where he resumed his old 
quarters up-stairs in the west chamber of Elmgrove house. 
There during the autumn evenings he found eager listeners 
to his accounts of travel and adventure. Shortly after his 
return to Elmgrove he suffered an attack of measles which 
made it necessary for him to remain until his recovery was 
complete. Doubtless he was not sorry for the opportunity 
of prolonging his stay and of considering more deliberately 
what course he should follow. 

At length, spurred by the necessity of seeking a milder 
climate, he decided to turn southward and to spend at least 
a part of the winter in Washington, D. C. He was moved to 
this step still more perhaps by the desire to see at first hand 
the workings of our governmental machinery, toward which 
he had long felt a secret, though powerful, inclination. 

163 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

Doubtless, also, he intended to make an effort to overcome 
his "native indisposition to society" by entering actively 
into the gaieties of Washington's social season. Evidently, 
he was soon, in every way, disillusioned. The Washington 
of the forties could not but seem tame and crude to the young 
man fresh from the large capitals of Europe. Indeed, the 
capital of our nation was then primitive and uninviting. Re- 
flections of those early days have found humorous record in 
the pages of American Notes and Martin Chuzzlewit ; in fact, 
Dickens's visit to Washington preceded Mitchell's by only 
four years, and judging by Donald's letters and articles, 
Dickens's descriptions were not far from the truth. Under 
date of December ioth, 1846, he was writing to Mary God- 
dard after this fashion: 

So, Mary, I am here, and thoroughly disgusted with Washing- 
ton — with its hotels — its buildings — its streets — its shops — its 
barbers — its hack-drivers — its railways — its people — its weather — 
its comforts — its society — its charges — its talk — its fashions — its 
changes — its novelties — its antiquities — its bustle — its rowdyism, 
and its life; and if I had not determined beforehand to survive a 
month of it nolens volens y I would take the cars to-morrow for 
Richmond. I was never so thoroughly disgusted with any place 
in my life. Salem is a paradise beside it. Your roast mutton and 
macaroni were better than my dinner and breakfast together here 
at Gadsby's; and as for society, why, old Mr. Tiffany would figure 
as a Beau Brummel beside some old fellows that were at table 
to-day, and as for young bloods, Lafayette Latimer or Tim Avery 
could set the fashions if they were to stand in the doors of the 
tailors' shops along Pennsylvania Avenue; and if there are any old 
unmarried women of your acquaintance, send them to Washing- 
ton, tell them to hang a red and white plume in their hats, and sit 
in the gallery of the House two days in the week, and they will be 
belles, and like enough before the session is over, utterly married. 

164 



LAW AND LITERATURE 

Saturday night, Gadsby's Hotel. — I was never so homesick in 
my life, not in the most distant quarter of Europe, in Ireland, or 
Jersey, or Austria, or Prussia, whether alone or with companies, I 
never felt the sensation of loneliness so strong as here. I eat at 
table with forty, not one of whom I know, and most of whom I 
would not if I could; I go into the reading room and there are a 
parcel of vulgar fellows smoking. There is no place to fall back 
upon. If I go to another hotel, it is worse. In short, I am driven 
to my room and driven to this stupid sort of writing. 

Last evening I attended one of the President's levees; talked 
some five minutes with Mrs. Polk, who is a pleasant sort of a lady; 
chatted also with the belle of the house, Mrs. Walker, the wife of 
the private secretary. The beauties were few; plenty of great men, 
though not much greater than other people, after all. I determined 
to-day, once, to pack my trunk, to run down to Charleston, and to 
return thence to New York; but I was afraid of being laughed at if 
I could not stop in Washington five days without being so disgusted 
as to run away. 

You ask whom I know as yet. Let me see: there is Don Alvra, 
son of the Ambassador for the Argentine Republics; a son of Gov. 
Cass; half a dozen members; Mons. Stakkel, Secretary, Russian 
Legation. . . . But it is doubtful if I do not lose my ballast again 
before to-morrow is passed by, and start for the south on Monday 
morning. . . . 

On the 14th of December he left Gadsby's Hotel and be- 
gan living at the boarding-house of a Miss Ulrich, whose 
establishment in 15th Street at the corner of F, immediately 
opposite the Treasury Department, was in those days much 
esteemed. There he came in contact with more congenial 
company. Among members of Congress who boarded there 
were John A. Rockwell, a native of Norwich, Connecticut; 
William W. Campbell, later a justice of the supreme court of 
New York; Henry J. Seaman, of Staten Island; and William 

165 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

Wright, of Newark, New Jersey. John Osborne Sargent, 
the well-known New York attorney, and Lewis Cass, Jr., 
afterward minister to Rome, were also there. The diplo- 
matic service was represented by M. Stoeckle, then secre- 
tary of the Russian Embassy, later a baron and himself 
ambassador; Chevalier Testa, minister from Holland; and 
one or two from the legation of the Argentine Republic. 
With all of these Mr. Mitchell formed acquaintance, and 
through their influence came to a good knowledge of life at 
the capital. With such companionship he overcame his 
repugnance for Washington sufficiently to prolong his stay 
for almost two months. 

In addition to other literary work — he was busy with 
articles for the American Review — he found time to write for 
the New York Courier and Enquirer a series of lightly satiri- 
cal "Capitol Sketches," which were greatly enjoyed by the 
reading public and which were extensively reprinted in other 
papers. Perhaps the most interesting feature in connection 
with these "Sketches" is the fact that they were the first 
of Mr. Mitchell's writings to appear over the signature "Ik 
Marvel." For several months he had been seeking a suita- 
ble pen-name, the two names "Caius" and "Ik Marvel" 
occurring to him, as it seems, about the same time, and for a 
while being used concurrently. The Marvel pseudonym ap- 
peared for the first time at the close of his initial Washing- 
ton letter, December ioth, 1846, and was printed "JK. 
Marvel." This error, occasioned by the typesetter's mis- 
taking Mr. Mitchell's "I" for "J," was promptly corrected, 
and in subsequent letters the pseudonym was printed 
properly. For a long time, however, a period was used after 
the "Ik"; and sometimes the name was printed "Ike." 
Ultimately the signature established itself as "Ik Marvel." 

166 



LAW AND LITERATURE 

Some have wondered why Mr. Mitchell chose this pen-name. 
He used to say that he had forgotten the circumstances 
which led to its selection; he believed its brevity and attrac- 
tiveness had been the chief considerations. There can be 
little doubt, however, in the minds of those who know his 
fondness for Izaak Walton and Andrew Marvell that con- 
sciously or unconsciously — perhaps by inspiration — the 
names of those two old worthies united in Mr. Mitchell's 
mind to form one of the world's most widely known and best- 
loved pseudonyms. 

As the weeks passed, love for Washington did not grow 
upon him. Portions of two letters to Mary Goddard show 
clearly his state of mind during those weeks, and with what 
difficulty he was working toward a decision as to his future 
course of action: 

(Washington, Jan. 2d, 1847.) — A happy New Year to you, 
Mary; nor have I suffered your letter to "Mr. Mitchell" to remain 
unanswered so long as mine. Did you really think I did not 
like Washington because it was an American city ? Perhaps I did 
not tell you as I might have done that Philadelphia I liked as much 
as Washington little. ... I shall probably take a run down to 
Charleston before going back, having half made an engagement to 
that effect with Chev[alier] Testa, the Dutch Minister. 

Washington still seems dull to me, though gay to most. I 
sometimes wish I loved society more, but it seems as if I were too 
old to change. My acquaintances thus far are Mr. and Mrs. 
Dixon of Hartford, Mrs. Miller of New York, Mr. and Mrs. Ames 
(of the newspaper Union) , Mr. Marsh and wife and wife's sister, 
with whom I called yesterday upon the President and half a dozen 
high functionaries. They, by the way, are very pleasant people 
(the Marshes), Mr. Marsh a thorough scholar, has splendid library 
and fine old engravings, and what is more, drinks excellent wine 

167 



j 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

and gives good dinners. Mrs. Marsh is, as you know, a scholar 
herself, and only three days ago I had an argument with her on 
studying Greek, which, however, I do her the credit of saying, she 
does not know; but speaks French and German, and reads Spanish 
and Italian. She is a pretty woman and so is the sister. I have 
also taken one capital dinner with a Mr. Johnston, the literary 
editor of the Intelligencer. In short, Mary, if I could only make up 
my mind to be impudent, unhesitantly impudent, drop my card at 
all of the foreign Ministers (a thing most common), I should find 
myself, I dare say, charmed with Washington. But how can I? 
. . . What say you to my going back to Europe in the spring for 
two years' study at Leipsic ? 

Nay, now, don't cry out that it is nonsense, though I've not de- 
cided. If my health is as good, I shall commence studying either 
in Norwich, New York, or Europe, and I shall call myself thence- 
forth a Democrat. Another outcry ! My convictions are strong 
on those points. There is no sort of question but there is more 
unity, more entireness, more liberality in the Democratic party 
than with the Whigs. And, as I have always said, the measures 
of the party are more definite, and more in unison with the Re- 
publican character of the Government. Moreover, the Whig 
party is more led by demagogues, the Democratic party by men of 
weight of character; but this is all useless. You say nobody will 
marry me in Connecticut. To tell the truth, I have thrown mar- 
riage out of my mind; my pride will prevent my marrying until I 
have a reputation with which to secure a wife, and it will take 
about six years of good health to make to myself a reputation fit to 
marry with. 

If I live ten years with good health, I mean to be in Congress. 
You say my head is turned topsy-turvy; I am inclined to think so 
on rereading the last clause. But I have never suffered more from 
despondency than here at Washington, from the fact of the noise 
and gaiety in which I could make no part. Pray tell me how shall 
I learn to love this gay life better, to talk nonsense with the women ? 

168 



LAW AND LITERATURE 

Do you suppose I can do it ? Do you suppose I can learn to make 
myself agreeable ? Then tell me how. I have a curiosity to try 
it. . . . 

I enclose some letters for your private reading from Courier and 
Enquirer. I do not wish it known that I write them. My publi- 
cation of book is more and more dubious. I write an article on 
landscape gardening for Col ton's March number [of the American 
Review]. Tell me what you think, what is thought, of "Boldo's 
Story." Colton says it is the best thing I have published; cer- 
tainly it is the most original and striking. . . . Kiss all the chil- 
dren for me and write me as soon as possible; that is to say, im- 
mediately. . . . 

(Washington, Jan. 28 th, 1847.) — Your favor of a week or more 
since was duly received. Ten thousand things, good reasons and 
bad, have prevented my replying before. I attended last evening 
a party at the Spanish Minister's, at which were present all the 
diplomatic corps, and all the elite of Washington. The Spanish 
Minister's lady is Scotch, and of high birth and most diverse ac- 
complishments; among others is an authoress and a good one, 
speaks four languages, plays upon the harp, piano, and sings, &c. 
Among others present were Mr. and Mrs. Webster, Mr. and Mrs. 
N. P. Willis (with the latter I had a long and pleasant chat), 
the British Minister, Prof. Silliman, Jr., Dr Woods, President of 
Bowdoin College, &c, &c. So you see I peep now and then upon 
the world. 

The "Capitol Sketches," which you did not like, are exciting 
more attention than any series of letters for some time. There is 
great curiosity to find out the writer; as yet, he is not known at all. 
I have been questioned myself by several ladies, but have uniformly 
evaded or denied it. So keep dark at home. When I say I wish a 
thing kept secret, you know I mean it. Col. Webb, the editor, is 
in the city and has been questioned repeatedly. He says (justly) 
he did not know, but that he would write to ascertain. I have, 

169 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

however, anonymously given him a hint to guard the secret. 
They have been copied into papers in all parts: this not in boasting, 
since they are not things I am proud of; it only shows I have taken 
the right manner to hit popular wishes. My reputation through 
the "Notes by the Road" [published in the American Review] is 
far greater than I had any reason to hope for; and I have come to be 
stigmatized as a literary man — a name I do not covet. 

Mrs. Marsh's is yet one of my most pleasant visiting places. 
I have dined with them twice and had most capital dinners with 
plenty of most excellent wines. ... By the way, speaking of 
dinners, you would have been surprised to see me dining a week 
since, in a private way, with the editor of the Union and Mr. 
O'Sullivan, the late editor of the Democratic Review! A rare trio, 
was it not? But we did not talk politics, and the lady of the editor 
is a most agreeable bride. My acquaintance is still limited, but 
select so far as it goes. I dine beside the Dutch Minister every 
day, and we chat together exclusively in Italian, as he speaks 
English imperfectly. 

I still have in mind to go South before returning. My ideas still 
lean toward passing the summer with you at Norwich. Events 
will determine if I shall do it. I am sorry my farm is not 
sold. Mr. Lewis, of New London, is here (Charles), and a very 
pleasant man I find him. He dissuades me from attempting a pro- 
fession. So far as support goes, there is to my mind no doubt, now, 
that my pen would do it; but it is a dog's life, and as you love me, 
never speak of me as a literary man. It shall be an amusement to 
me always; a business, never. I hear little or nothing of friends at 
Hartford. In their last they wanted to know if my traveling 
sketches were in a newspaper or magazine ! In reply, I sent them 
a copy of the National Intelligencer, one of which I sent you. If 
I make my way in the world, it will be in spite of them. And if I 
live and have health, I will make my way. Thus much of sad 
egotism; but pardon it, for I think you will read it with mercy. 

Tell me now what you all are doing. How comes on Alf at his 

170 



LAW AND LITERATURE 

school ? How is Julia, and what is she doing, these long evenings — 
reading Jack the Giant Killer — or has she read "Boldo's Story"? 
(pray, what do you think of it?) I may safely say it is liked 
here. . . . 

It must have been very soon after the date of this last 
letter that he left Washington for the South. The journey 
afforded him an opportunity to gain further knowledge of the 
sentiment in regard to the war with Mexico. His knowledge 
of the struggle was already extensive. From the vantage- 
point of Europe he had followed with intense interest the 
events which preceded it. The battle of Palo Alto was 
fought May 8th, 1846, four months before his return from 
abroad. For three months he observed the war sentiment in 
New England, and for three more followed the conduct of 
the struggle at the seat of government. Now, as he passed 
through Wilmington, North Carolina, he saw troops gather- 
ing for service, and at first hand learned the attitude of the 
South. 

Not many details of this Southern journey remain. We 
do know that he formed valuable friendships in Charleston, 
and that he went on to Savannah, Macon, and other points 
in Georgia. One incident of the journey came in after years 
to have unusual interest for him. "It is a curious fact," he 
wrote about 1898, "that at Charleston I delivered a letter of 
introduction from Mr. Chambers, of Chambersburg, Mary- 
land, to Alston Hayne, Esq., who lived directly opposite the 
old Pringle house. Alston Hayne was out of town; but I was 
received very courteously by his brother, Dr. Arthur Hayne, 
who invited me to join him in going to a large reception that 
evening. I was provided only with travel wardrobe and de- 
clined. The curious part of this is that directly opposite 
the office of Arthur Hayne was the home of the Pringles, 

l 7 1 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

and as I stood talking with Dr. Hayne at leaving, a carriage 
drove away from the opposite house with two young ladies, 
to one of whom I was married just six years later, though I 
did not meet them until the summer of 1852." 

About the middle of March he returned to Norwich for a 
brief visit, and later went on to New York City. In the 
meantime he had determined to venture upon the publica- 
tion of a first book, an enterprise which he had been con- 
templating, as we have seen, with a great deal of hesitation. 
The notion of such publication had undoubtedly occurred to 
him very soon after he reached England in 1844, an d had 
been strongly confirmed by the encouragement of his uncle, 
Walter Mitchell. "You suggest," he wrote to his uncle 
(July 14th ? 1845), " a source of pecuniary profit in author- 
ship. I fear that such an issue of such pursuit would be 
extremely doubtful. It is by no means the first time the 
plan has been in my mind. My ambition is of a sort that 
keeps me and always has kept me in a fever of desire. But 
unfortunately it is of the l aut Ccesar, aut nihil* kind. I 
never look forward to any third or fourth place with any 
complacency. Hence, in proposing to myself any publica- 
tion of personal observations I have great misgivings that 
such may fall short of public approval. My ambition is too 
strong for my abilities and like Richard III 'o'erleaps itself/ 
I always had most confidence in myself for public speaking 
as a ground of future reputation. My health for the present, 
however, will forbid all effort that way. It was to this end 
all my studies in college were directed. I have thus far 
taken brief note of my observations through the progress of 
my travels, making a word, as far as possible, the exponent 
of a scene. I endeavor to seize upon those points which will 
be most valuable to me as an American and which would be 

172 



LAW AND LITERATURE 

most eagerly listened to by American ears. The time for 
amassing mere statistical knowledge has gone by; geogra- 
phers and gazeteers have monopolized the business. It re- 
mains for a tourist to catch hold of social and individual 
peculiarities, to illustrate them by incident, to relieve them 
by description, and to bind all together with easy and fa- 
miliar narrative. Have I rightly epitomized the work to 
be done ? and will you subscribe for one or half a dozen cop- 
ies ? But this is joking. I am by no means decided on pub- 
lishing. I have no vulgar ambition, I trust, merely to be the 
author of a book; had far rather never be heard of, than be 
the author of a poor book. Still, have a most worrisome 
ambition to be the author of a good one. Only promise me 
success and I will set about reducing my notes to duodecimo; 
as it is, they lie within my little pocket memoranda, whole 
pages mummied in a line. You will see some letters of mine 
over signature of Don, in the Commercial Advertiser of New 
York. I should be gratified with your remarks upon them. 
In the event of publishing, I should like your opinion on 
this point: should an intended work take the form of familiar 
letters written in the currente calamo vein of these to you, or 
the more formal dress of sketches ? The first would be more 
in quantity and easier written; the latter less, and require 
more care. A failing in the first might be retrieved; a failing 
in the latter would be very discouraging. Should a painter 
try public favor at first with a cabinet picture, or a pencil 
sketch?" 

During his months of wandering over Europe he had 
formed some definite notions about authorship. He was 
sincere in his statements that he did not covet the mere name 
of literary man, and that he preferred not to be known as a 
writer unless as the author of a good book. 1 Something of 

1 See pp. 116 and 170 of this biography. 
173 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

his conviction he confided to his note-book (July 14th, 1846) 
during the last days of his residence in Paris: 

I begin to think if it will be worth while to publish any notes of 
travel when I get back. If I thought it would not pay to the full, 
I would never undertake [it]. Nothing seems to me more humiliat- 
ing than the state of an author who cannot make a book good 
enough to pay for his bread. It is a very ludicrous and ridiculous 
sort of charity which prompts a man to publish his thoughts when 
the public do not care enough about his thoughts to pay him either 
for his time or for his trouble. He had much better every way 
drop his surplus money into the parish poor-box. In that case he 
may console himself with knowing that no one is pestered with his 
thoughts and that some poor souls may be stuffing their bellies 
with his money. 

The success of the five instalments of his "Notes by the 
Road/' which appeared in the American Review between 
February 1846 and January 1847, convinced him that an 
appreciative public awaited his best effort. In the Review 
of December 1846, George H. Col ton, the editor, without 
consulting Mr. Mitchell, had intimated that a book of travel 
similar to the "Notes by the Road" might soon be expected. 
"For a narrative of pleasant, minute observations written in 
a graceful, subdued style, slightly quaint, making the reader 
an easy-minded companion of the rambling traveler — a style 
quite new under the prevailing taste for rapid and vigor- 
ous writing — we venture to bespeak, we might say predict, 
beforehand, a most favorable reception," wrote Mr. Colton. 
"The writer's quick-eyed observations have covered many 
parts of Europe — the solitary heaths and hills of Scotland — 
the life led in London and Paris — the quaint and simple 
forms of things in France and Dutch-land — the ever-great 

174 



LAW AND LITERATURE 

scenery of the Alps — the scenes and associations, never yet 
exhausted, of 'remembered Italy.' With such things to talk 
about, and a certain way of telling his story, we do not see 
why his should not be a 'proper book/" 

On the 22d of March 1847, Mr. Mitchell addressed the 
following proposal to Harper and Brothers: 

Your attention has been already drawn to a series of papers 
published in the American Review under title of "Notes by the 
Road." It is proposed to publish a book of sketches of the same 
general character. Its title would be 

FRAGMENTS OF TRAVEL, (or as known) Notes by the Road 

being 
A NEW SHEAF GLEANED ON OLD GROUND. 

la Be aWoi ov icaTe\d/3ovTO f tovtcop /jlv^tjv iroLrjao/JLai. 

Herodotus, Lib. vi. cap. 52. 
BY CAIUS. 

It would relate to the Channel Islands, Paris, the interior of 
France, Holland, besides containing glimpses of the mountain 
country of Italy and Hungary. True to the motto, I should en- 
deavor to seize hold of such objects of interest as have been over- 
looked by others, besides attempting to invest subjects of general 
attractiveness with some new charm. Such occasional legends as 
might fall in my way would be worked over, and sometimes I 
might amplify historic chronicle into the semblance of a tale. Of 
this characteristic you can judge by matter already submitted. 
I should also endeavor to graft upon the book such observations as 
might prove of some value to the reader who looked for something 
more than amusement. ... In general, I may say there would 
be a leaning in style to the manner of the later French tourists, 
as Dumas, Hugo, etc., with an eye to the peculiarities of Sterne. 
So far of the subject matter and style of treatment. 

175 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

As for the book mechanically ', if I cannot secure its good appear- 
ance, I am anxious for none. I wish it printed in duodecimo or 
small octavo, on good paper and with good type, neither to be 
poorer than in Ticknor's edition of Motherwell, or the late edition 
of Sargent's sea ballads. I wish also the same sober brown paper 
binding, and the leaves left uncut. I wish that the various head- 
ings (as in chapter given) should be designated by small capitals in 
the body of the page, and that each opening paragraph should 
commence with a large capital, as in an early duodecimo edition 
of Sterne, which if desired can be left at your office. For bulk, I 
shall not exceed 300 pages, nor fall short of 200. 

I wish now to enquire if the Messrs. Harper are willing to pub- 
lish such a work in such a style, and if so, how great a -percentage 
they would allow the author upon the retail price y and how soon they 
could undertake its publication ? As I remain only a few days in the 
city, the Messrs. Harper would do me a great favor in replying 
before the evening of Wednesday, the 24th. 

On the 24th the Harpers agreed to the proposal, and the 
memorandum of agreement was signed on the 26th. Accord- 
ing to the contract the author was to receive a ten per cent 
royalty on the retail price. It appears that during the spring 
of 1847 there was a press of business in the Harper establish- 
ment; at any rate, it was not until June 19th that Donald 
reported progress to Mary Goddard. "My book will not be 
out for some time yet, perhaps a month," he informed her, 
"though it is now being printed. I send you a page and 
proof of title, which, however, will be much changed in ap- 
pearance. Do not show it, nor talk of the book. Me- 
chanically, it will be handsome. ,, And then follows a sen- 
tence which shows that at some time in the interval he had 
weighed the comparative merits of his two pen-names, and 
had discarded one. "You will not fancy my adopting the 

176 



LAW AND LITERATURE 

Ik. Marvel; it is, however, a stroke of policy." The book 
was published about August 1st under the title Fresh Glean- 
ings , with title-page altered from the form first suggested, 
altered just sufficiently to transform its commonplaceness 
into distinctiveness. Its dedicatory letter to "M. W. G." 
was a merited tribute to Mary Goddard which attracted the 
particular attention of the public on account of its delicate 
grace and rare style. 

Fresh Gleanings met with immediate and gratifying suc- 
cess. On the 1 6th of August Donald informed Mrs. Goddard 
that it was "well spoken of" and "its sale good." George 
H. Colton, always Donald's good friend from the days of 
their association at Yale, printed an enthusiastic notice in 
the American Review (August 1847), which was followed by 
many other favorable reviews in the leading newspapers and 
magazines. When the Harper edition was exhausted, a new 
one from the old plates was issued by Charles Scribner in 
1 851, Mr. Scribner having in the meantime become Mr. 
Mitchell's publisher. The book has retained a hold upon 
public interest and to-day forms the initial volume of the 
beautiful Edgewood edition of the author's works published 
in 1907. 

August and September of 1847 found Donald lingering in 
his usual half-busy, half-idle fashion at Saratoga, Richfield, 
Avon, and Sharon Springs, New York, where as always with 
eyes keenly observant he was gathering material for the 
humorous and satirical "Marvel Letters" which, at the in- 
stance of Henry J. Raymond, who was mindful of the in- 
terest aroused by the "Capitol Sketches," he was contribut- 
ing to the New York Courier and Enquirer. The success of 
Fresh Gleanings did not bring the content for which he was 
hungering. A restless, dissatisfied mood was upon him. 

177 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

The inanities of society vexed him; "at Sharon — a delightful 
place — but where unfortunately I knew no one . . . the 
company was just of that aristocratic sort as made me too 
proud to make advances," he confided to Mary (August 
1 6th). "I am angry with myself,' ' he continued, "for not 
having made acquaintance with the people at Sharon . . . 
but dancing, etc., makes up so large a part of the oppor- 
tunity at these places that I gave up the attack to those who 
go on in legitimate way. Indeed, candidly, I think I shall 
settle down after all the flourish of trumpets a fretful old 
bachelor." 

In October, accompanied by his brother Alfred, he visited 
Niagara Falls, and travelled down the St. Lawrence to Mon- 
treal with every one of his senses alert, and in just the mood 
to be impressed most forcibly by the scenes amidst which he 
was moving. Those portions of Dream Life in which he 
describes this northern scenery are the fine flowering of this 
autumn journey. 1 

Literary work and random travel, however alluring and 
engrossing, were not conducive to serious professional study, 
and all the time a conviction haunted him that he should be 
engaged in some such study with a view to future permanent 
employment. He never, it appears, seriously considered 
literature as a life-work. Subsequent developments empha- 
sized the firmness of his resolve that for him literature should 
be always an amusement, never a business. Continued 
uncertainty of health and an inability to decide upon a pro- 
fession delayed his plans. It appears, however, in a letter 
to Mary Goddard, that by June 19th, 1847 he had decided 
pretty definitely upon law. It is certain that upon his re- 
turn from his northern journey, he began the study of law in 

1 See pp. 157-160, and 162-165. 

178 






LAW AND LITERATURE 

the Wall Street office of John Osborne Sargent, whose ac- 
quaintance he had made in Washington. A classmate of 
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Mr. Sargent was the valedictorian 
of Harvard's class of 1830. He was eleven years the senior 
of Mr. Mitchell, a man of good judgment and great ability, 
with an interest in literature and journalism that must have 
made the two very congenial. He had been an associate 
editor of the Courier and Enquirer from 1834 to 1841; in 
1848 was in charge of the Battery •, a Washington journal that 
championed the cause of Zachary Taylor for the presidency; 
and subsequently became one of the founders of the Republic. 
Mr. Sargent should also be remembered as the legal repre- 
sentative of John Ericsson, inventor of the screw propeller 
and of the celebrated ironclad Monitor. 

However diligently Donald strove to apply himself to 
legal study, he was unable to find it sufficiently attractive 
to call out his best endeavor. Siren voices were ever luring 
his attention elsewhere, though he strove manfully to resist. 
"You see," he wrote to Mrs. Goddard (November 21st, 
1847), "I am in the same quarters [90 Franklin Street], as 
uncomfortable and querulous as ever. Pray do not forget 
your good judgment so much as to advise me to come home 
before I am yet fairly established. . . . Indeed, I find if I 
am going to study to any advantage I must give up visiting 
during the day; and when evening comes, it is either too 
cold, or a pleasant book is too entertaining, or I [am] too blue 
for easy chat. It is impossible to be both a man of fashion 
and a student, and I prefer the last both from native inclina- 
tion and sense of duty. All your talk of my Broadway 
promenades falls flat; flatter, indeed, than I could wish when 
I see so many beautiful faces at every church and have to 
feel that they are denied to me. Indeed, you scarce know 

179 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

how strangely friendless it makes me feel to go into church 
after church here (I have attended three to-day) and play 
the stranger at each, be shown a seat by the sexton — not 
one smile to welcome me — not one face that wears familiar 
looks. I come away feeling like Cain or Ishmael, and half 
fear that there is something in my nature which will make me 
an outcast and homeless one all the days of my life. . . . 
Law looks dull and dismal, and stretches on in a two year 
reach of dullness before any green thing appears. You do 
not know how country thoughts steal in upon study and 
play the very dickens with Blackstone and all the rest. It 
half seems as if I was made for the country, after all. It 
is the only pursuit; that is, agriculture, that can ever en- 
gross me to the exclusion of all others. I have made no new 
acquaintances; have visited none; have joined no club; have 
not shook a friend by the hand since my last writing. I shall 
hunt up Mrs. Dixon to-morrow, Coke, etc., notwithstanding. 
I think I have written three letters to your two. I am glad 
to hear the children missed me; that, then, is a little to re- 
deem the desolate waste of life." 

Notwithstanding his outcast feeling, he enjoyed the com- 
panionship of a few congenial souls. Chief among them was 
George Colton, with whom he passed many hours in the 
"ramshackle Nassau Street office" of the American Review, 
where, some time in 1844, while assembling material for the 
first number of that magazine, Colton had read to him from 
Poe's manuscript 1 the haunting lines of "The Raven," and 
"as he closed with oratorical effect the last refrain, declared 
with an emphasis that shook the whole mass of his flaxen 
locks, ' That is amazing — amazing!'" With such metrical 
dance in his brain, and with such companions to ramble along 

1 American Lands and Letters, 2. 237-238. 
180 



LAW AND LITERATURE 

the alluring paths of literature, it is not strange that the study 
of law fretted Donald. How many hours he and Mr. Sar- 
gent discussed literature and journalism will doubtless never 
be known. It would be interesting to learn whether there 
was any falling off in Sargent's income during the years 
1847 and 1848 ! In the autumn of 1847 Donald was board- 
ing at the establishment of Mrs. Barnes on Fifth Avenue, 
between 8th and 9th Streets. Among his companions there 
were Samuel J. Tilden, who was a nephew of Mrs. Barnes, 
and the Rev. Henry James, wife, and young son, Henry, 
Jr., then four years old. Surely, during that winter Mrs. 
Barnes's table was one of interesting contacts ! 

In addition to the allurements of literature, opportunities 
for lecturing now began to present themselves, although he 
was doubtful of his ability to sustain the fatigue of public 
speaking. A letter of January 17th, 1848, to Mrs. Goddard, 
reveals pretty clearly the confusions of the winter. "There is 
nothing new to tell you," he begins. "I have not been very 
well, and have consulted your Dr. Bulkley. The weather is 
detestable. I go to Albany next Thursday (Jan'y 27th) 
where I think I shall remain four or five days. Thence I 
shall probably go to Norwich by way of Worcester. The 
American Review remains in statu quo. I have nearly given 
up all idea of purchasing any portion, and with it all idea 
of writing for it. I do not like the present editor. 1 My story 
of 'The Little Shoe* will appear in Graham s Magazine for 
March. I do not like the idea of writing for such a maga- 
zine, but the pay ($4 per page) was too tempting. I have 
since had proposals made [to] me by the attorney for 
Blackwood to write a series of American articles for that 

1 George H. Colton had died December 1st, 1847, at the early age of twenty- 
nine. 

I8l 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

magazine. I think I shall do so, but do not mention it. I 
shall be glad to have a romp at home again, though I shall 
probably stay but a day or two. If I do not find a tenant for 
my farm I shall advertise it to be sold at auction. . . . My 
yearnings still all tend to a country life. I have declined 
since my last, three invitations to parties and two to dinners, 
as much, however, from ill-health as any other reason." 

A lecture engagement had taken him to Albany, New 
York. There on the 28th of January he spoke before an 
audience of about 1,400, meeting with success sufficient to 
assure him that at any time he desired he had at command 
another good source of income. The 31st saw him in Nor- 
wich, Connecticut, whither the Goddards had removed in 
the autumn of 1847 and established a home on Sachem 
Street. After a short visit he returned to New York, but 
found the old duties as irksome as ever. New distractions 
arose. The loss of his old tenant increased his desire to sell 
his Salem farm and relieve himself of all necessity of looking 
after what he considered an unprofitable investment. Wash- 
ington was beginning to beckon him again. "It would give 
me much pleasure to go," he wrote Gen. Williams, "but feel 
as if business duties should not be yielded for it." Turn 
whichever way he could, there seemed to be no open road 
before him. And then, just as the whole situation was grow- 
ing intolerable to him, the spark of revolution in Europe 
flamed into fire, and Donald was off to witness the conflagra- 
tion. 



182 



VII 

PARIS IN REVOLUTION, 1848-1849 

I am as far, and farther than ever, from believing that the mere 
adoption of the republican form is to heal the grievances of the 
nation. I feel no Brougham-like inclination to set up my cares 
under their trees of liberty; and am more and more convinced that 
that little corner of country called, after its strong Saxon nurse, 
New England (you will excuse in me a little leaning pride of birth- 
right), is in everything that goes to make happy and contented the 
great mass of population, the most unmatchable piece of earth 
that the sun shines upon. — Ik Marvel Letter, Courier and Enquirer, 
Sept. 7th, 1848. 

Donald's former residence in Paris (1 845-1 846), during 
the last years of the Orleans monarchy, had given him the 
opportunity of familiarizing himself with the conditions of 
French political life. Louis Philippe, Guizot, Barrot, Thiers, 
Lamartine, and other leaders, were not strangers to the 
young New Englander. He had looked upon them with his 
own eyes, had studied their utterances, and had discussed 
their policies with the inhabitants of rural France as well as 
with the denizens of the Paris streets. For the king he came 
to have a qualified regard. "Louis Philippe/* he wrote in 
1850, "was not all he should have been, or all that his posi- 
tion and his means would have made it easy for him to be. 
But Louis Philippe was a man of talents, of perseverance, of 
system, and of energy . . . and when in princely station 
there meet us such capacity, such development, and such 
culture as belonged to the head of the house of Orleans, it 

183 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

becomes us to think that they were gained, as they must al- 
ways be gained, by determined effort." 1 When, therefore, 
during the early months of 1848 the news began to arrive 
from Europe of banquetings, of Louis Philippe's abdication, 
of the formation of a provisional government, and the anar- 
chic conditions that followed in its wake, it was not in Don- 
ald's nature, restless and dissatisfied as he then was, to re- 
sist such opportunity to witness history in the making. 

In the dedicatory letter of The Battle Summer, addressed 
to his college friend, Joseph Few Smith, Donald tells in his 
own inimitable way the manner of his departure for the 
scenes of revolution: 

You know that in the early spring of 1848 I was immured in the 
dim office of a city attorney; and that the alarum of the new-born 
Republicanism of France first came upon my ear under the cob- 
web tapestry of a lawyer's salon. 

To me, with whom the memories of courts and monarchic 
splendors were still fresh and green, such sudden news was startling. 
I tortured my brain with thinking how the prince of cities was now 
looking — and how the shops — and how the gaiety? I conjured up 
images of the New Order, and the images dogged me in the street, 
and at my desk, and made my sleep a nightmare ! They blurred 
the type of Blackstone, and made the mazes of Chitty tenfold 
greater. The New Statutes were dull, and a dead letter; and the 
New Practice worse than new. For a while I struggled manfully 
with my work; but it was a heavy schoolboy task — it was like the 
knottiest of the Tusculan Questions, with vacation in prospect. 

The office was empty one day: I had been breaking ground in 
Puffendorf — one page — two pages — three pages — dull, very dull, 
but illumined here and there with a magic illustration of King 
Louis, or stately poet Lamartine, when on a sudden, as one of these 
illustrations came in, with the old Palais de Justice in the back- 

1 See The Lorgnette, 2.253. 
184 



PARIS IN REVOLUTION, 1848-1849 

ground, I slammed together the heavy book-lids, saying to myself: 
Is not the time of Puffendorf, and Grotius, and even amiable, 
aristocratic Blackstone gone by? And are there not new kingdom- 
makers, and new law-makers, and new code-makers astir, muster- 
ing with all their souls and voices, such measures of Government 
as will by and by make beacons and maxims? And are not these 
New-men making and doing and being what the Old-men only 
wrote of? 

Are not those people of France and wide-skirted German-land, 
lit up by hatred of aggression and love of something better, putting 
old law and maxim and jurisprudence into the crucible of human 
right, and heating them over the fire of human feeling, and pouring 
them into the mould of human judgment, to make up a new casting 
of Constitutional Order? 

And as for the New Practice, is there not a new practice evolv- 
ing over seas — not very precise, perhaps, about costs and demurrers 
and bills of exception — but a practice of new-gained rights, new- 
organized courts, new-made authorities, new-wakened mind — in 
short, the whole practice, not only of Courts, but of Human Na- 
ture, and Passion, and Power ? 

Are they not acting out over there in France, in the street, in 
the court, and in the Assembly, palpably and visibly, with their 
magnificent Labor Organizations, and Omnibus-built barricades, 
and oratoric strong-words, and bayonet bloody-thrusts, a set of 
ideas about constitutional liberty, and right to property, and 
offences criminal, and offenses civil, wider, and newer, and richer 
than all preached about, in all the pages of all these fusty Latinists ? 

And I threw Puffendorf, big as he was, into the corner, 

and said 1 will go and see ! 

That very evening, under a soft, summer-like, smoky sky of 
early spring, I set off to bid my few friends adieu. It was an hour 
or two past midnight when I reached the little town; (you know it — 
how pretty and how fresh it is !) Not a soul was stirring; the 
streets were silent; the houses were dark; only a little mingled 

185 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

light of moon and stars was playing on the roofs, or dappling the 
ground that lay under the long lines of elms. 

My dog met me with — first, a growl, and then a bound of wel- 
come. I crawled in at a window — groped my way to a chamber, 
and threw myself half-dressed upon the bed to dream of gay Paris 
streets. 

The birds wakened me. Then came the rich, quick welcome — 
the glad surprise — the throng of kind inquiries 

The next day I was tramping over the old farm-land; sitting 
upon the rocks under the familiar trees; drinking from the spring 
once so grateful in the heats of summer labor. 

The morning after, I shook your hand upon your doorstep in 
Waverley Place: by noon I was on ship-board; and at sunset at 
anchor off the Hook. 

By eight next day I was listening in dreamy reverie to the tug 
and chorus of the sailors at the windlass — an hour, and the royals 
were sheeted home — another, and the Highlands of Neversink had 
sunk, and I was fairly bound for France ! 

You know now the history of my sudden leave. 

It was through a window of Mary Goddard's home on 
Sachem Street, in "the little town" of Norwich, that he 
crawled that morning of early spring. And it was over the 
Salem farmlands that he tramped next day by way of fare- 
well to old times and old scenes. He loved the "rich, quick 
welcomes," the "glad surprises" that followed upon such 
sudden irruptions; and it is sure that both the Goddards and 
the good old Gen. Williams were well surprised on this occa- 
sion. During those restless years it seems quite certain that 
Donald found relief in quick change of scene and in the 
stimulus of sharp adventure. His sailing was from New 
York on the Grinnell & Minturn Packet Ship Prince Albert, 
about May ioth, 1848. He arrived in London at three 
o'clock, Sunday afternoon, June 4th. 

186 



PARIS IN REVOLUTION, 1848-1849 

He amused himself during a part of the voyage by writing 
Mary Goddard a letter in diary fashion. "Pray tell me," 
he began, "what people say of my sudden departure. I 
daresay many of them will set it down to some speculative 
enterprise, or government employ. . . . The General was 
taken so much by surprise at my determination that he had 
neither arguments to combat it, or suggestions to favor it." 
As he approached the coast of England another peculiar ele- 
ment of his character began to assert itself; namely, a longing 
to be back amid scenes among which he had just been living 
in only a half-contented way. This, too, is a state of mind 
common to those who possess such a delicately sensitive 
temperament as belonged to Mr. Mitchell. "To-day June 
ist we made the first land," he wrote. "It is as usual on the 
English coast, rainy; a feeling of half homesickness comes 
over me even here, but it is too late now to waver. What I 
shall come back, or when, is wrapped in great uncertainty. 
. . . I shall remain here (in England) until after the 12th 
[of June], at which time is to be another great Chartist dem- 
onstration, which I fear will be more bloody than the first. 
After that time I shall probably go to Paris and pass re- 
mainder of the summer." 

He had somehow found time in the brief interval before 
sailing to complete arrangements for reporting the progress 
of events in Paris to the New York Courier and Enquirer. 
He did not, therefore, linger long in England. It was proba- 
bly not later than June 13 th when he arrived in Paris and 
began immediately to seek out positions nearest to the revolu- 
tionary disturbances. During his nine months in Paris he 
had in all six different places of residence. At first he was 
quartered in a hotel in Faubourg St. Honore which he left 
for lodgings in the Rue du Helder at the corner of the Boule- 

1 8 7 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

vard des Italiens, where he stayed during the three slaughter 
days, June 23d, 24th, and 25th; then after brief periods in 
the old Rue St. Thomas du Louvre, the Rue de Bucy, and 
the Rue de Seine, he secured permanent quarters at 7 Rue 
de Tournon, on the south side of the Seine. 

Within two weeks after his arrival in Paris the struggle 
between the executive committee and the assembly had 
reached a crisis. On the 21st of June the assembly forced 
the committee to decree the closing of the national work- 
shops, and on the 23d began that sanguinary struggle be- 
tween the disaffected workmen and the forces of govern- 
ment, which did not entirely close until the 26th. Every 
detail of the conflict that he could gather by direct observa- 
tion, or report, appeared in his very interesting letter 1 to the 
Courier and Enquirer. "The four days of June 1848, of 
which I have . . . given you- some account, will hence- 
forth," he wrote, "be cited as one of the terrible epochs in 
French history. The period has been characterized by the 
spirit of the revolutions of the last century; and the insur- 
gents, in the sternness of their action and in the blackness 
of their cruelties have brought to life again the demon spirit 
of ' 93 ." 

On the 26th of June he despatched a message to Mary 
Goddard. " I am writing," he began, " in the midst of dread- 
ful revolution. The report of it will have reached you before 
this letter, and may have occasioned you some anxiety on 
my account; nor do I now know, indeed, what will be the end 
of the matter, or under what circumstances I may be placed 
at the time this letter is mailed. At present, I am, in common 
with all the idle residents of Paris, a prisoner — confined to 
one narrow street of a hundred yards in length. The streets 

1 Published in Courier and Enquirer, July 14th, 1848. 



PARIS IN REVOLUTION, 1848-1849 

are all of them occupied by soldiery, and I see nothing from 
my window but marches and counter-marches and troops of 
dragoons and litters of wounded men and hearses. All day 
yesterday and the day before, cannon and musketry were 
heard in all directions, nor has it entirely ceased to-day. 
For a full account of what I am seeing, you must look in the 
columns of the Courier. 29th June. The battle is over, 
Mary, and I am safe. There has been dreadful work; from 
10 to 20,000 killed, and twice as many wounded. Day be- 
fore yesterday I went over the scene of the slaughter in a 
throng of soldiers and curious lookers-on. Houses were pil- 
laged and shattered with balls, the pavement red with 
blood, every window broken, and weeping faces in almost 
every door. It is to be hoped that the scene will not be re- 
newed, and if so, that I escape as well as before. But do 
not be in any alarm. My quarter is a very safe one, not 
very liable to such disturbance and at the same time giving 
a good view of what is passing in the city. . . . You must 
excuse my writing a very short and meagre letter by this 
steamer as I am rendered nervous by the excitement of the 
time." 

He passed a disturbed summer and autumn, but con- 
tinued very faithfully to report for the Courier the ebb and 
flow of the troublous times. It is interesting to observe how 
this experience quickened and confirmed his love of quietness, 
beauty, and order. It was for him a revealing and a confirma- 
tion of desires. As the Prince Albert proceeded up the 
Thames in early June, Donald gloried in all the charms of the 
English landscape. "The country ... up the Thames is 
looking delightfully," he wrote to Mrs. Goddard; "all my 
old country love comes back with it." And as he sat in his 
room in the Rue du Helder amid the boom of cannon and 

189 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

the rattle of musketry during those June days of battle his 
thoughts, like singing larks, were circling far above the noise 
of conflict, and longing for green fields and babbling brooks. 
"I don't know how it is," he confessed to Mary in his letter 
of June 26th, "but when I get here in the midst of the noise 
and bustle of Europe, I sigh more than ever for a quiet coun- 
try home, and determine over and over to enjoy it when 
I return." 

The old first rapture at sight of Paris he could not recall. 
"You do not know how Paris nowadays differs from the 
old one," he told Mary (July 1st, 1848); "nothing now of 
that gaiety — nothing of that liveliness belonging to every- 
thing, streets, houses, horses, dogs, women, sunlight, which 
used to infuse itself into the temper of even so dull a brute as 
I, and make me forget all about my Saxon lineage and New 
England education. But I remember both with pride now, 
seeing as I do so much that is irrational and impracticable 
entering into the complexion of French character, when there 
is really any need of serious effort. In short, I have got over 
much of my old love for the belle city, and shall come back 
(an't you glad ?) a little more satisfied with the homespun 
jacket of New England make. I do not know, indeed, but 
my love for the world, now seeing it in some of its worst 
phases, is diminishing in the same proportion (haven't I said 
as much in this letter before ?) So look out for me a little 
farm where I may gather together my books and chattels, 
hang up my chamois skin and knapsack together, keep my 
gun and fishing tackle in order, my pipe ready for occasional 
service, and so live out my span doing good in such humble 
way as falls to my allotment. Do you say yes ?" 

The political events of the summer did not please him. 
His study of conditions led him to believe that the time for 

190 



PARIS IN REVOLUTION, 1848-1849 

the formation of an enduring republic was not yet ripe. In 
his Courier letter of July 20th, 1848, he dwelt at length upon 
his analysis of the situation: 

While the lovers of order are strongest, discipline will be main- 
tained at all hazards, however much the aggrieved may trouble, or 
however loudly they may resent it. With the Communists upper- 
most, heaven only knows what new state of terrorism might dawn 
on France ! There might be no Hebert, linking atheism to cruelty; 
and no Murat, strangely conscientious in doing murder; but the 
notions of a Lagrange and a Prudhon grafted upon the spirit of 
the June barricades would make a complication of wrong in 
thought, and wrong in action, that would inevitably shock every 
feeling of humanity, and trample every dictate of religion under 
foot. 

But an American would be unjust to his origin and privileges, 
if he had not some consciousness of a sort of moral training which 
is his by birthright, and which gives him, so to speak, a republican 
habit; a habit of controlling his desires and impulses; a habit of 
looking up to those wiser than himself; and a habit of belief that 
there are some wiser than himself. The French peasant has not 
enough of moral culture to lay a strong hand upon his own passions; 
nor does he possess the popular education which would better fit 
New England boys of fourteen to erect a government for them- 
selves, than the abettors of the insurrection. In France, there is 
no "schoolmaster abroad." Nor is there in France that firm and 
active religious sentiment which is no small safeguard to our insti- 
tutions at home. 

A nation that will run as wildly and heedlessly into atheism as 
the French did under the crazy leading of Chaumette and a rene- 
gade German; and again within the year almost, into the worst 
species of deism, as they did under the guidance of Robespierre, 
will not be very apt to control its desires when it has power to 
manifest them. Those who will bow down to a harlot in a white 

191 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

robe and call her Reason, will be very apt to bow down to passion 
when it is throned in their own bosoms, and call it Right. 

Nor are the French much changed in religious feeling. Only 
within the week, M. Prudhon has spoken without rebuke of 
Christianity as a dogma nearly worn out. Those who do not re- 
spect the institutions of heaven will hardly respect those of their 
own making. 

Do not think me monarchic in thus declaring my firm conviction 
that the French are at present unfit for a republic — certainly for one 
so indulgent, and presuming so much upon the good intentions of 
its citizens, as our own. They may win fitness for it; but they will 
not win it by firing at a target, and secreting fusils, and crying, 
Long life to the Republic ! They will not become fit by studying 
treatises which advocate a dissolution of property; and which ex- 
cite passion by declaiming about existing misery. They need rather 
to gain a firm self-denial, a trustfulness in the future that shall not 
be eternally interrupted by a clamor about a little present hard- 
ship; they need a little more of a rigid, old-fashioned, commonsense 
teaching that shall not so much flatter their vanity as acquaint 
them with their weakness. They need to cultivate a respect for 
what is sacred, and a love for what is good. French statesmen 
should give up treating of unities and indivisibilities; and think 
more of things possible and practicable. They should leave off 
acting as if no republic ever existed before, and be content to lend 
an ear to what other nations may have done. 

It should not escape their notice that a country calling itself 
the United States of America has struggled boldly and bravely up 
through some sixty-odd years of experience in this same matter of 
republicanism; never once putting down from its brawny shoulder 
that same old republican banner on which was written in the be- 
ginning, Liberty and Equality ! Such experience, it would seem, 
might offer something worthy of their attention. Surely they 
might venture upon careful study of our Constitution, and occa- 
sional reading of Story. M. Cormenin would thus find his igno- 

192 



PARIS IN REVOLUTION, 1848-1849 

ranee set right, and M. Cormenin would be honored in sitting at 
the feet of such Gamaliel ! 



With the exception of three weeks spent in the vineyard 
region of Bordeaux in company with a college friend, Mr. 
John Perkins, of Louisiana, he lived continuously in Paris. 
Nor was he idle. First of all, he applied himself to the Courier 
reporting until the end of the year; his last letter but one, an 
account of the election of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte to the 
presidency of France, bearing date of December 28th, 1848. 
A letter to Mrs. Goddard of November 15 th tells of his other 
activities. "My time I mean to occupy constantly this 
winter in work of some sort. Chiefest among it, I shall at- 
tend law lectures three times a week, agriculture twice a 
week, physics twice a week, and history twice a week. Aside 
from this, I shall have more visiting on my hands than 
usual . . . there are . . . one or two English families whom 
I shall see often, and shall go frequently to the [United States] 
Consul's, where I meet very many Parisians, and a very 
select circle . , . nor do I know how I could gain more, if 
as much, benefit in any part of the United States, as here. 
Lectures are to be heard in every branch of science, and in 
every profession; the language to be gained; the formation 
of the Government to be noted, &c, &c; in short, I should 
consider myself as throwing away advantages if I were to 
go home this autumn for no other reason than is now ap- 
parent. . . . You must not for a moment think that this 
winter is squandered upon amusements. I am as seriously 
and thoroughly at work in gaining information and general 
knowledge as I ever was in my life. I experience the same 
sense of the loss of time when idling that you remember I 
used to at home." 

193 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

A feature that annoyed him very greatly during almost 
the entire period of his absence was the scarcity, or late 
arrival, or entire failure to arrive, of letters from the home 
friends. His energetic complaints seem humorous enough, 
now, after the lapse of years; but for him, at that time, alone 
and surrounded by the dangers of revolution, often ill, and 
generally in low spirits, the matter was serious. His letters 
of remonstrance are particularly self-revelatory. "If I were 
to fall victim of the insurrections,' ' he wrote to Mary (July 
14th, 1848), "there would not be one to save me from the 
terrors of the morgue. You can imagine, then, how much a 
letter is appreciated, as it is the only link that binds me to the 
world of acquaintanceship. I am not well, either, and do not 
go about a great deal. Perhaps it is safer for me. A horrible 
plot was announced yesterday to have been detected. All 
the young girls in the neighborhood of the insurgents (at the 
various boarding schools) were to have been captured and 
placed upon the barricades to prevent the firing of the troops 
until the insurgents could mature their plans. It has so 
frightened the friends of many that the schools are becoming 
deserted. Paris, too, itself is losing population every day; 
hundreds and hundreds go every day. It will soon be popu- 
lated only by insurgents and troops, and the few strangers 
will stand between the fire. I will go on frightening you un- 
less you write me, and unless you write me long letters. 
There is no occasion for my writing very long ones, since you 
find my whereabouts and see what I am seeing every week in 
the Courier. ... It is as beautiful an afternoon as you can 
possibly imagine; sky clear, and sun not too hot. Yet the 
streets are almost deserted, and I never experienced a feeling 
of greater loneliness in my life. No wonder there should be 
empty streets where so much blood has been shed within a 

194 



PARIS IN REVOLUTION, 1848-1849 

month. Two or three times on crossing the Place du Car- 
rousel I have stopped to look at the blood stains — great, 
black, hideous looking stains at which the dogs come even 
now and lick and snuffle. Yet they have been washed and 
scoured every morning for three weeks. They are the stains 
of that conflict between the guard and the prisoners of which 
there is some account in my letter by this steamer. Seventy 
dead bodies were carried off the spot the next morning. It 
was just under the windows I held when I was last in Paris, 
26 St. Thomas du Louvre. Some of the balls struck the 
house." 

Not having received letters by the 22d of July, Donald 
grew desperate, and dashed off the following brief note: 
" Still another steamer, and no letter. I have now been from 
home nearly three months, have written six letters besides 
those to the papers, and received one meagre half sheet ! 
Mary, it is rather hard for me to give up what few friends I 
supposed I had in America; but if driven to it, / can do it. 
You know some old inclinations will favor the task. I shall 
henceforth look out for friends on this side; and try to forget 
the other side, so much as to be careless whether you write 
or not. ... Of course, you need not expect to hear from 
me for a long time to come." 

At last, letters began to arrive irregularly. On the 26th 
of September, however, we find him complaining again. 
"Your letter of the 29th August came to hand (owing to the 
unintelligible character of the superscription) some days 
after its time, a week since. It was marked No. 6, though it 
is but the fourth I have received from you. I do not know 
why your letters should have so miscarried; my own have 
gone regularly, and I have received regularly from other 
sources. One reason is very likely the indistinctness with 
which they have been directed. It is true they can read 

i95 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

English here; but then English must be written with some 
tolerable plainness, and not as if the letter were going only 
to New York. All your letters have chased over Paris before 
finding me, on this very account. . . . You will already 
have given up seeing me this fall, or if not you may safely 
do so now. I shall not return till spring, if then. My 
health is not good; my spirits have not been of the best, to 
which lack of your letters has not a little contributed. Lat- 
terly, however, I have grown more careless. My time — 
partly owing to ill-health, and partly to ill-humor is not so 
well employed as it might be — and a sort of indifference to 
things in general is growing upon me, which the neglect of 
friends at home has had a very nourishing effect upon. . . . 
We are all looking just now for another revolution; every one 
is disturbed and frightened. As for myself, I have relapsed 
as I said into a state of perfect indifference. If I knew the 
battle were to rage in my own street to-morrow (and I am 
now in a suspected quarter near the Rue de Seine), I would 
not leave. Perhaps if I were to have one arm shot off — or 
head — I should receive a letter of condolence to cheer me. 
Do not think that the French mails are disturbed — there are 
no complaints — they carry very punctually all the letters 
hence — I think they bring very safely all that arrive from 
America. I am sorry you feel sadly or unpleasantly, but 
you will be better able to appreciate my feelings now I trust. 
A letter to you is much less than to me, both from your hear- 
ing indirectly every week nearly, and from your being at 
home while I am an exile. This letter is (I confess it) 
written sourly, in worst possible humor; but if it had been 
good humored, it would not have responded honestly to my 
feelings; as it is, it is their counterpart. I have no apology to 
make for it, and nothing to add to it." 

The following morning a bundle of letters and papers 

196 



PARIS IN REVOLUTION, 1848-1849 

from America reached him. "I have received this morning, 
Mary, yours of a date previous to that before received/ ' he 
replied at once. "The letters and the Sun have put me in 
better humor than yesterday. You speak for the first time in 
your letter of date August 26th of my return, and are curious 
to know what keeps me here. I, in my turn, should ask, What 
should call me home ? I feel myself a sort of unit in society — 
a solitary, floating adventurer to whom the question can 
hardly be put, Why do you so, or thus ? This world is now 
full of excitement and confusion and war — why not stay to 
see the issues ? . . . This letter is not so good nor so long as 
you desire, perhaps; but in my present mood it would be a 
Herculean task to write any more. Everything [seems] 
wrong with me." 

Upon his return to Paris from Bordeaux he found further 
occasion of complaint. Mrs. Goddard had taken care, how- 
ever, to inform him that she also had important duties which, 
at times, made letter- writing impracticable. "Your letter 
of a very old date I found on my return from Bordeaux," 
he informed her (November 8th, 1848). "It was dated 
early in September, and marked No. 7. It is, I think, the 
fifth I have received; but perhaps others are on their way 
and will arrive in the course of the season. It is but poor 
comfort to receive such tardy messengers; and news, as you 
rightly judge, is grown old after the lapse of a long ship 
passage. You know, of course, that the British steamers are 
still running, and never fail to transport a letter properly 
directed and paid for. . . . You say General Williams does 
not fancy my continued absence. Does he mean to drive me 
to return by silence ? It is not the way; you know me well 
enough to have told him that. Indeed, nothing has so con- 
firmed my resolution to spend the winter abroad as the evi- 

197 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

dences of indifference which met me at home. You know, I 
believe, better than any one, Mary, my whimsical, crochetty, 
sudden, obstinate character, not suited to any one but myself, 
and working out its own destinies by a sort of irresistible 
fatality. You have rightly judged that the lack of letters 
first grieved me, then provoked me; and that the final feel- 
ing was a complication of both. But in writing to you as I 
did, believe me, that if I had once suspected that you were 
in attendance upon the sick-bed of Louis, I would have 
written only in the most kindly words. You know too well 
for me to tell you of it that I regard you as my best friend in 
America, and if it were not for you, my attractions homeward 
would be diminished nine-tenths. I am not going to fill my 
letter with professions — you know I don't love them and 
never did; but seriously, putting yourself and Louis out of the 
question. ... I could go to sleep to-night and wake up 
to-morrow forgetful of every soul that America contains. 
This, you say, is strong and unwarranted and all that — may- 
be it is so — but a lonely man is very apt to adopt such whim- 
seys." 

It appears that Mrs. Goddard took him to task rather 
severely for so much in this vein, and in reply he wrote her 
the following important letter (December 20th, 1848): 

Your last, dear Mary, is not now by me; but I think I can re- 
call enough of its scope and spirit to be able to make a tolerable 
answer. Don't for a moment think that anything in it offended 
me. I have not yet so far lost all my qualities of a Christian man 
as to be offended with what was so well meant; nor am I so far 
ignorant of my own character as not to know that a great part of 
what you say is true. But when you attribute all my indisposition 
to conciliate, and to seek friends, and to keep them — to selfishness, 
unmingled — I shall demur. When you intimate that it may have 

198 



PARIS IN REVOLUTION, 1848-1849 

been the result of early habit and circumstances, I agree most 
cordially, and regret most sincerely that such habits have now al- 
most become a second nature. They have tormented me more than 
you will believe; and my very inaptness to conciliate and multiply 
and guard friendships has (from bitter consciousness that it be- 
longed to me) brought more tears to my eyes in my quiet and silent 
moments than I can believe would come freely into the eyes of a 
purely selfish man. Don't think I want to disarm you of your very 
judicious charges by exciting your pity, though Heaven knows -hat 
I stand enough in need of it, and am grateful for the smallest boon. 
You have not taken enough into the account two qualities which 
harass me, and always will — an extreme sensitiveness, and over- 
weening suspicion. You may say that sensitiveness belongs to a 
selfish man and is a part of him ; if so, it is a part of him for which he 
is not justly blameable, and for which he is no more accountable 
than for his color. But I am ashamed to go on talking in this way, 
on so short a sheet and so near Christmas time. You say you know 
me; then, as you love me, think as well of me as you can. I had 
rather be well thought of by half a dozen than to be flattered for an 
empty and unmeaning courtesy, by half the world. My sensi- 
bilities and affections ever since I was eight years old have been 
too rudely jostled, and grown up among too many thorns, and 
suffered in too many waste places, to accommodate themselves 
ever again to proper world-shapes. Hence, I have a sort of con- 
viction which is not new (much as I have talked to the contrary) 
that I never ought to marry; that so I shall avoid extending the 
blight of my presence, and narrow my ungainly qualities to the 
smallest and least hurtful limits. 

This is queer Christmas talk to be written down in the gayest 
capital of the world, and at the witching hour of twelve at night; 
but so it is, and my heart chimes in with it. . . . You want to 
know how the winter passes with me ? Not gaily, very far from it. 
I attend the lectures frequently, and take a walk every day of two 
or three miles. Still the winter is not gay, nor I. I seem more 

199 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

a sort of homeless, wandering, friendless, purposeless vagabond 
than ever before in my life. It matters very little, I say to myself, 
whether I get back into that American world next summer, or 
next year, or the next ten years. I am but a shuttle-cock beat 
about by the strong hand of Fortune, which strikes me here as 
hard and as often as it strikes me there. There is no avoiding the 
blows, and I had best suffer them where there are none to be both- 
ered with my complaints. 

These were, of course, the ebullitions of passing moods, 
and as the weeks progressed the pull toward America grew 
stronger. "The state of affairs in Europe," he informed Gen. 
Williams (December 18th, 1848), "is such as to make one 
ten-fold content with America, and I shall return more than 
ever satisfied that it possesses the most secure, most wise, and 
most liberal government in the world." And to Mrs. God- 
dard on the 8th of March 1849, ne wrote: "I must at least 
go home to see how you are all getting along, to set my farm 
matters straight, and to draw a long breath of true republican 
air." 

All the while he was considering plans for permanent 
occupation. Now it was the possibility of a professorship 
of literature in the new college at New Orleans, suggested by 
his friend Perkins, in preparation for which he felt that a year 
of study in a German university would be a necessity. Now 
the establishment of a new magazine in New York was con- 
templated. Again, he speculated on the possibility of a 
political appointment. "Should Mr. Marsh, of Vermont, 
be appointed to an embassy at Berlin, or Madrid," he wrote 
to Gen. Williams (January 6th, 1849), "I should try to se- 
cure the secretaryship of Legation for a year or two; but the 
appointments are so uncertain that I shall act as if it were 
an absolute impossibility." Always thoughts of country life 

200 



PARIS IN REVOLUTION, 1848-1849 

mingled with these visions. "Out of none of my plans does 
a farm ever escape/' runs a portion of a sentence in a letter 
to Mrs. Goddard (November 8th, 1848), and the thought is 
repeated so often in the correspondence of the year that it 
forms an insistent refrain. "Scarce anything/ 7 he tells her 
in the same letter, "would so lure me home as the prospect 
of farm employ not too far removed from town. If Salem 
were not in verity the fag-end of creation, I should have been 
ensconced in a little chamber of my farmhouse long before 
now. Even in a literary score, I find I can accomplish twice 
as much in the country as in the city." Then, when indeci- 
sion had reached its height, and there seemed no other de- 
sirable avenue open, he turned once more to thoughts of law. 
"I think I shall come home in the spring," he told Mrs. 
Goddard (January 25th, 1849), " an d go directly back to law 
in New York until driven off by cholera or the heat." 

As in Liverpool he had followed the course of the presi- 
dential election of 1844, so now in Paris he turned even more 
eagerly to the struggle of 1848 between Zachary Taylor, 
Lewis Cass, and Martin Van Buren. "I am glad Clay is 
dropped," he remarked to Mrs. Goddard (June 26th, 1848). 
"Tfaylor] will be elected, and then a Whig cabinet, and Whig 
appointments." And again on the 1st of July he wrote: "I 
suppose, of course, he [Taylor] will be elected; we think he 
will, this side. If I was home, I would vote for him" — "and 
perhaps," he added in a letter of November 15th, "turn to 
making speeches in his favor." Now and then he felt an 
urge to public life. "What if I should come home a full- 
blooded politician," he asked Mary in this same letter of 
November 15th, "go out to Salem and set myself up for the 
Legislature ? Ask them if they will vote for me. The truth 
is, the procession of the times here makes one feel that his 

201 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

duty lies in having something to do with the direction of the 
Government influences." All in all, however, he was be- 
coming surfeited with sight of political turmoil and political 
disappointment. As the time for the presidential election in 
France was approaching, he was writing (December 8 th) to 
Mary in a strain that gave evidence of the direction in which 
all his dreams of political life were to turn. "We, you know, 
are all anxiously looking for what will come of our presiden- 
tial election — most likely, blood. Another great turn over — 
then a king or an emperor, and then I will go home and turn 
to farming, satisfied that I have seen enough of the world's 
changes, and content to live in peace. I do wish from my 
heart I was snugly fixed on a little farm in the country where 
the noise and tumult of the world could only steal in by 
snatches. Pray is that dream of mine, I wonder, ever to be 
realized ? " 

The spell of the printed page was still holding him, and 
he was considering the best method of turning his Paris 
experiences to profitable account. The success of Fresh 
Gleanings, good as it was for a first book, had yet not been 
good enough to stir him to any enthusiasm. "They [friends 
in America] have been prodigiously surprised, I will warrant, 
before this at seeing Ik Marvel's imprint in the columns of 
the Courier dated in the middle of the revolutionary city," 
he wrote Mrs. Goddard (July ist). " Maybe I can make my- 
self a lion at coming back, on the strength of having seen the 
four bloodiest days of the last fifty years-^-more bloody for 
Paris even, than the massacre of St. Bartholomew. ... I 
promised Mr. Bentley in London to write some sketches 
of this modern Paris for his Miscellany. I may do so. He 
treated me very kindly, and agreed to publish in handsome 
style any work I would write on my mountain trip, and allow 

202 






PARIS IN REVOLUTION, 1848-1849 

me one-half the profits. I have not yet decided what to do. 
Is it best ? I have not enough of stimulus to do anything. 
The poor success of the first has altogether dampened my 
book-making ardor. No one but you and a few friends have 
spoken of it." Nevertheless, he informed her on the 8th of 
March 1849, tnat ne was preparing his papers "for a small 
book on the events of the summer," which he planned to 
issue in the course of the year, provided he could find a pub- 
lisher; "a sort of sketchy history of the summer at Paris," 
he called it. 

It is worth our while to peep in upon him at his lodgings 
in 7 Rue de Tournon, and to see how amid all his duties and 
anxieties his mind, as in 1847, was ever "drifting like a sea 
bound river — homeward." The letter is to Mrs. Goddard 
under date of November 8th. "I am sitting by a little fire 
made of two sticks and a pine cone. The blaze is playing 
in quite home fashion over the white curtains of my bed, and 
over the gilt backs of my little stock of books; a couple of 
plaster heroes are smiling on me from the mantel, and a clay 
bust of Voltaire is grinning on the bureau. I would like to 
transport myself this moment and look in upon you. You 
have (allowing for our nearness to the East) just finished 
your tea, and are drawing up about the grate or the stove. 
Heigho ! for the glowing old wood-fires of Elmgrove ! I shall 
write an eclogue some day or other, and make the pastorals 
pipe it in that old valley of our farms. My clock, over the 
mantel, has a queer conceit in its construction: two little 
bronze boys are trying to catch a butterfly; the butterfly is 
somehow connected with the clock-work, and keeps moving 
— always just so far away — always just so near being caught. 
I moralize upon it in all sorts of fashion: sometimes it is 
time which is always slipping and we always chasing; some- 

203 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

times it is pleasure which we are always seeking and never 
seize; sometimes it is life which we are always catching and 
always losing. So you have three texts for as many ser- 
mons, and I nodding on my paper." 

A quiet melancholy was stealing upon him; a feeling of 
age that was, in truth, a necessary ripening of his mind and 
spirit for the work that lay not far ahead of him, as much as 
it was a result of loneliness, uncertain health, and absence of 
regular occupation. More and more he was turning to Mary 
for sympathy, advice, and comfort. "You see," he told her 
(July ist, 1848), "I consult you as much as ever, though so 
far removed. I believe what you say, Mary, that you have 
spoilt me for a wife. I shall never find one who will be so 
tender to my faults as you have been, and so willing to 
praise what little merit I may have; indeed, I have now 
given up all expectation of marrying, and shall return home 
next time in full determination of living a bachelor." Again, 
half jokingly, he wrote (December 8th, 1848): "As for me, 
Mary, age is creeping on me, I imagine, and in a year or two 
I shall give up all thought of ever getting married. A dog, 
a horse, and a cat must keep me company; and neither one 
nor the other of them can be annoyed by my petulance, or 
laugh at my foibles." Often his mood was one of "dreaming 
of the days that are no more." "You don't know how often 
my thoughts wander delightedly to that old country home 
at Salem," he told Mary (March 24th, 1849). "I tramp over 
those hills, and smoke on that porch, and rub up my gun, 
and pat Carlo nearly every night of the week. I don't know 
as I shall ever get it out of my head. Surely my feelings 
will never attach to Norwich in the same way, of that I am 
ten-times sure. I sometimes dream of having a great for- 
tune, and going back there, and re-instating everything in 

204 



PARIS IN REVOLUTION, 1848-1849 

the old way, and so dream on again a life of happy idleness. 
If your tenant is disposed, I daresay I may go out there to 
pass some weeks of next summer. I would pitch a camp 
bedstead in the corner of my old room, hang up my gun in 
the old place, tie to the wall a couple of book-shelves with 
Burke and Shakespeare and Izaak Walton, stick over the 
mantel an engraving, and then — what ? Ah, it would be but 
the vainest shadow — the peskiest skeleton — the rottenest 
image of what used to be ! The conviction grows on me more 
and more, and harder and harder, that all the play-time of 
my life — all the enjoyable piece of our stingy allotment of 
time — is gone; and that thenceforward it must be one strug- 
gle and fight and frown — all the while in the sun's heat, and 
no shade of trees to run to — all the while thirsty, and no 
cool spring to dip a lip upon — all the while panting like a 
tired dog, and no kennel to crawl into and sleep. You may 
say, kindly enough, this is sad folly for a man of six and 
twenty; but I have a sort of feeling of having grown old 
before my time, and a great deal of the weight which bur- 
dens a man of fifty is lying on my shoulders." 

He sailed from Havre in the packet-ship Zurich near the 
middle of April 1849, an d experienced a somewhat long and 
disturbed voyage. A mulatto cook, having refused to obey 
the captain's orders, had grown mutinous and was placed 
in irons. Escaping from his place of confinement during the 
night, he again attacked and almost succeeded in killing the 
captain; but was finally placed in custody for the remainder 
of the journey. The event cast a gloom over the long pas- 
sage of somewhat more than five weeks. Among the passen- 
gers whom Donald came to know and like best was a Madame 
Cecile Pusey, a sister of the eminent Prof. Arnold Guyot, 
who with her three children was on her way to join her hus- 

205 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

band on land which he had acquired near St. Louis, Missouri. 
The voyage later found record 1 in Seven Stories, for the "good 
ship Nimrod" is only another name for the 7Mrich, 

Before the middle of May, Donald was resting at Mary 
Goddard's home in Norwich. Here a letter came to him 
from George P. Marsh. "You are aware no doubt/' wrote 
Mr. Marsh (June 9th, 1849), "that I have been appointed 
to the mission at Constantinople. I wish the Legation were 
so arranged that I could offer you an acceptable place; but, 
unfortunately, no provision is made for any secretary or other 
attache except the dragoman who acts as Secretary of Lega- 
tion. The pay of the Minister is so small that he cannot 
afford to allow a compensation to an attache, and indeed, 
I imagine that he can have little occasion for any official 
assistant except the dragoman. It has, however, occurred 
to me that you might desire to visit the Levant, and in that 
case, I suppose it might be useful to you to be connected with 
the American Legation, and I write to say that if you incline 
to adventure a pilgrimage among the Paynim, I shall be 
happy to give you any privileges I have power to confer. 
We hope to sail in July, and if the state of Germany will 
permit, to pass through that country and by way of Vienna 
to Trieste, and so by steam to Constantinople. Could you 
not turn such a trip to account ?" It would seem that only 
a lack of funds on the part of the American minister pre- 
vented Donald's joining Mr. Marsh on this beginning of his 
long and distinguished service abroad. 

Within a few weeks Donald went on to New York, estab- 
lished himself in a little second-floor room of Mrs. Barnes's 
home, 1 1 Fifth Avenue, and settled down once more, "study- 
ing law after a fashion" with Mr. Sargent, preparing the 

1 Seven Stories, 22-39. 
206 



PARIS IN REVOLUTION, 1848-1849 

manuscript of The Battle Summer, and revolving over and 
over the vexed question of what to do. The Battle Summer 
was published early in 1850 by Baker & Scribner. The vol- 
ume, designated as "The Reign of Blouse," treats of the 
events immediately preceding the insurrections of February 
23d and 24th, 1848, and carries the narrative down to June, 
the first month of Donald's own observation. It was his 
intention to continue with a second volume, "The Reign of 
Bourgeois," based entirely upon his own observations; but 
the reception accorded to the first was not sufficiently hearty 
to spur him on to the preparation of the second. The style 
of The Battle Summer did not meet with public approval. 
"It is not good, inasmuch as it is not Mr. Mitchell's own," 
wrote a reviewer in Putnam's Monthly Magazine. "It is a 
very obvious attempt at the Carlylean style of writing, and 
we confess we don't like our author in borrowed clothes. He 
wears his own so gracefully that we would never wish him to 
change them." 1 Another reviewer 2 spoke of it as "a bald 
imitation of Carlyle's nodosities, too execrable to find mercy 
from reader or critic." Mr. Mitchell, always extremely sen- 
sitive to public opinion, and always encouraged or depressed 
by the favorable or unfavorable sales of his books, dropped 
the subject, and never again attempted anything in the same 
style — a style entirely foreign, it may be said, to the bent of 
his genius. 

He did not, however, give over writing. For the time 
being it seemed the only thing which could occupy him seri- 
ously. It at least afforded him pleasure and a source of 
revenue. 

1 The January 1853 number, p. jy. 2 In the New York Tribune. 



207 



VIII 

SATIRIST AND DREAMER 

Folly has been my target, wherever it appeared; and I have 
endeavored by the wide range of my observations, to do away with 
the suspicion that I ranked vice by social grades, or heaped upon 
wealth or fashion any gratuitous reproach. — The Lorgnette, 2.2g^. 

I sometimes think that I must be a very honest fellow for writ- 
ing down those fancies which every one else seems afraid to whisper. 
— Dream Life, 17. 

From boyhood constant employment was a requisite of 
Donald's nature. Idleness he could not endure; and yet it 
seemed to him just now that he was doomed to a life of 
profitless inactivity. His friends, too, were becoming con- 
cerned about his apparent aimlessness and indecision; they 
thought he should be "doing something." They did not 
take into account sufficiently the fact that in his case appear- 
ances were deceptive; for even when he seemed least occupied 
he was drifting farthest on the wings of his fancy. It was 
impossible that his friends should know the children of his 
brain that were growing toward their birth. 

It should be remembered that this was for him a pe- 
culiarly trying period. It was no easy matter for one in his 
state of mind to pass from the exciting scenes of Paris rev- 
olution to the dull routine of a New York law office. For 
one of his temperament, I fancy that the law, even under 
the most favorable conditions, would soon have grown dis- 
tasteful. It had now become intolerable. Employment, 

208 



SATIRIST AND DREAMER 

however, he must find, and that of a nature to answer as 
substitute for the stimulus of travel and adventure. 

The success of his former contributions to the Courier and 
Enquirer — his "Capitol Sketches" and "Marvel Letters" — ■ 
no doubt suggested the thought of undertaking something 
in the same satirical vein on a plan somewhat more elaborate. 
It must have been very soon after the publication of The 
Battle Summer that he conceived the notion of publishing a 
weekly pamphlet, or journal, something on the order of the 
classic Spectator and of Salmagundi, in which he could turn to 
account his leisurely, though critical, study of American life, 
particularly as it revealed itself in New York City. It was 
inevitable that two extended periods of residence in Europe 
should enable him to see many of the faults and virtues of his 
own country in a way that he could not otherwise have done; 
and it occurred to him that the work he had in mind would be 
not only a source of enjoyment but a means of improving 
public manners and morals by subjecting them to merited, 
though good-natured, criticism. He decided to adopt a 
new pen-name, and to preserve as far as possible a strict 
anonymity. All of the arrangements he surrounded with 
enough of secrecy to give zest to every passing week, and to 
satisfy his appetite for excitement. The project combined, 
in a way peculiarly satisfying to him, employment, public 
service, and amusement. 

His plans were well laid. It happened that just then his 
old Norwich schoolmate and fast friend, William Henry 
Huntington, was at work in New York upon the compilation 
of a Latin lexicon. Huntington made the contracts with 
the printers and the booksellers, and arranged for the weekly 
delivery of the pamphlets to the shops where they were to be 
sold. It is likely that in the beginning only Huntington and 

209 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

Charles Scribner, of Baker & Scribner, who printed the first 
twelve numbers, were in the secret. 

After two or three weeks of preliminary arrangement, the 
fun began. On a morning of late January 1 850, the windows 
of the Broadway book-shops, particularly those of the shop 
belonging to Henry Kernot, a lively little Englishman, be- 
came the centres of attraction. Copies of a small, yellow- 
covered pamphlet, The Lorgnette, or Studies of the Town by an 
Opera Goer, were bidding good-morrow to the passing New 
Yorkers. The copies bore date of January 20th. The pic- 
ture of a young dandy peering intently through a huge lor- 
gnette, and giving at first glance the impression of a large, 
staring owl, looked out from the cover upon all the passers-by. 
The bait was attractive. The curious bought, read, ques- 
tioned, wondered. Who could this reputed author, this John 
Timon, be, who promised "a work for the express entertain- 
ment of all spinsters who wish husbands; all belles who ad- 
mire their own charms; all beaux who are captivated with 
their own portraits; all old ladies who wish to be young; all 
authors studious of their own works; all fashionists in love 
with their own position; all Misses eager to be seen; all rich 
men who are lovers of their money; all bachelors looking for a 
fortune; all poets infatuated with their powers; all critics 
confident of their taste; and all sensible men who are con- 
tent to be honest"? No one could give a satisfactory an- 
swer; the whole matter was surrounded by profound mystery. 
Soon the newspapers and magazines were hot on the trail. 
Within a short time The Lorgnette was the talk of the town, 
and the matter of John Timon's identity the question of the 
hour. 

Henry Kernot's shop, in virtue of the pamphlets' bearing 
his name as publisher, became the storm-centre. Visitors 

210 



SATIRIST AND DREAMER 

thronged his store. They plied him with questions, they 
praised, they condemned, they laughed, they sneered; they 
could not ignore. But the little bookseller could not have 
informed them if he would. "Even Mr. Kernot himself/' 
wrote Mr. Mitchell in 1883, "was not cognizant of their 
true authorship; and knew little save that the big bundle of 
yellow-covered pamphlets was delivered in a mysterious way 
upon his counter every Thursday morning. Indeed, I am 
disposed to believe that Mr. Kernot's important air, and 
affable smiles, and tightly closed lips, fed the mystification 
not a little. The good man even volunteered the keeping of 
a weekly diary, in which he entered the opinions pro and con 
of his fashionable clients — a very full diary and humorsome 
(Mr. Kernot not lacking in that quality); and this budget, 
which always found its way to me through the mediation of 
one or two friends who were alone in the secret, is still in one 
of my pigeonholes, scored with underlinings, and radiant 
with notable New York names of thirty years since." * 

Never did boys enjoy a secret game better than Donald 
and his confidants enjoyed this work of satire and mystifica- 
tion. As the weeks went by, others were taken into confi- 
dence. Henry J. Raymond, of the Courier and Enquirer •, and 
Samuel Bowles, of the Springfield Republican, "were easily 
able to spoil too warm a trail in the search for the true John 
Timon." In New York, Dr. Fordyce Barker and Samuel J. 
Tilden, and in Boston, William H. Bond, kept eyes and ears 
open for material which would lend itself to Lorgnette pur- 
poses, and passed the results of their observation on to Ti- 
mon. For three months the endeavor to identify the author 
waxed more and more earnestly. Donald, now from his 
"garret" on Fifth Avenue where to-day stands the Brevoort 

1 See Reveries of a Bachelor, xvii. 
211 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

House, now from Norwich, and again from East Wareham, 
Massachusetts, watched the merry game go on. There is no 
need of enlarging upon the delight with which he and his 
confederates read such communications from Mr. Kernot as 
the following: 

New York, 19th April 1850. 
To the Editor of The Lorgnette. 
Dear Sir, 

In literature, as in society, the fashion and habits of the passing 
day have a contagious influence, and therefore, in conformity 
with the prevailing feudalism of modern book-making, and the sly 
artifice of novel manufacturers, I forward you, under the customary 
assurance, "to be continued" such gleanings as I have been able 
to gather since the last communication which I had the pleasure 
to address you. 

Diary. 

Tuesday, 16th April. — Mrs. Clarkson (538 B'way) sent her son 
for one or two numbers of Willis's New Work publishing weekly; 
guessed what he meant, but for the joke of it handed him the last 
issue of the Home Journal, when he immediately remarked, "No ! 
No! you publish it — The Lorgnette I It's very odd you are igno- 
rant of what all the town knows. It's not like you, Sir, you are 
generally so well informed; but this time you are certainly behind 
the age." N. B. A bright and smart lad to administer so severe 
and startling a reproof. 

W. C. Maitland (Bleecker St.) "What is your John Timon 
driving at? I'll be d if I can understand him. Does he pre- 
tend to be humorous, witty, or what ? " N. B. Like young stu- 
dents in the Elements of Euclid — the Lorgnette proves a sort of 
Pons Asinorum — the % E. D. of perplexing conjecture. 

Two Young Bloods entered in a rollicksome manner and asked 
for the last No. of the L., one of them in a jovial voice remark- 
ing, "This work is going to make a rage, Sir." 

212 



SATIRIST AND DREAMER 

Ik Marvel favored me with a visit, during which he told me 
"that he thought the L. would sell better if made more satirical" — 
upon the principle, I suppose, of pampering to the vitiated curiosity 
of the many by whom scandal will always be greedily purchased. 

A Gentleman (stranger) called to inquire if we had all the num- 
bers of the Lorgnette. On assuring him that I had really only one 
set left, and trying hard to obtain it for 8/-, then 9/-, then 
10/-, with a good deal of pleasant joking and chaffing, eventually 
appeared glad to secure it. He was a very pleasant, good natured 
gent., and said he knew John Timon, and interrogated me by asking 
whether I had lately seen his "honor" in the retirement of his 
garret — his "private room near the clouds." To which I replied, 
as to any knowledge of John Timon's person and whereabouts, I 
was completely in "the clouds," — and altogether ignorant whether 
he was paying an erratic visit to the inhabitants of the moon, or 
like the mystic Koran of Mahomet, floating in mid-air, or en- 
sconced in the impenetrable mystery of the intermediate state — 
supposititious, pregnant with the most awful debate. He further 
added and expressed himself delighted with the work, saying "it 
was full of good things and wholesome truths." I offered to send 
the work to his residence, with the view of learning his name, 
which he declined with a knowing look, as much as to say, in slang 
phrase, "No go." 

Wednesday, 17th. — Mrs. Kirkland called, and approaching me 
with quick step, said to me aside, and in secrecy, "that she had 
discovered John Timon in a glaring mistake; and meant to write 
him on the misquotation of the passage referred to in the Psalms." 
{Vide Psalm 73 : 20 in connection with the passage in page 212, 
No. 9.) 

A Gentleman who purchased a copy of the last No. of the L. was 
astonished at my alleged ignorance of the author, and assured me 
it was undoubtedly by Mr. Osborne. 1 It does appear to me a re- 
proach on American literature, in which I am willing to bear my 

1 Mr. Mitchell has added the annotation, "Laughton Osborn, b. 1809; d. 1878." 

213 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

share of the censure for not suggesting his name before, that 
amidst the multitudinous probabilities and improbabilities of the 
authorship of the Z.., the name of this gentleman has not ere this 
started up with brilliant prominency — a gentleman of elegant 
manners, erudite learning, fine classical attainments, profound 
thought, and extensive travel — combining in himself all the req- 
uisites of a polished scholar, and which no genuine philomath 
with suitable and appreciative abilities would venture to dispute, 
who has ever examined the Vision of Rubeta. But 

"Full many a gem of purest ray serene, 

The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear; 
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, 
And waste its sweetness on the desert air." 

James W. Beekman has just returned from Albany and told me 
"that the L. is much talked of there." Amen! to the favorable 
opinion of the capital of the Empire State. 

Br. C. Gilman. "Well, Mr. K., I am happy to inform you that 
your little publication, the L., is very highly praised everywhere, 
very highly, indeed !" 

Thursday, Apl. 18. — A Gentleman called to inquire for the No. of 
the Literary World containing the critique on the Z,., remarking, 
"Oh ! it is pretty generally known that the article was written by 
Mr. Bristed." 

It was my intention to have added a few more remarks, but 
this I must defer (suffering so severely from a distracting tooth- 
ache) until to-morrow, when I will endeavor to furnish you with a 
list of the alleged authors of the Lorgnette as far as I remember 
them, and before I began the Diary — with other "wise saws and 
modern instances " — meanwhile I bid you a friendly and temporary 

farewell, and remain v , ,. . 

Your obed t Serv t, 

Publisher of the Lorgnette. 

&F* Please return me at your earliest convenience my proofs 
of the Lorgnette , that Mr. Scribner showed you; with all the 

214 



SATIRIST AND DREAMER 

'notices* you can spare the loan of (to b? carefully returned to you) y 
accompanied by such remarks — quips and quirks — "whims and 
oddities," &c, as you may desire. I want to do your good little 
work justice. " Fiat justitia." 

Number 12 of the first series was dated April 24th. A 
portion of this number Timon devoted to a disquisition on 
the "Authors and Authorlings" who were then on the public 
tongue, and of course seized the opportunity to consider in 
turn and by name several of those most prominently men- 
tioned in connection with the authorship of The Lorgnette. 
He said his say about Joel T. Headley, N. P. Willis, Richard 
Grant White, Cornelius Matthews, and J. K. Paulding, to 
mention only a few; and at the same time took occasion to 
divert attention from himself. "Mr. Ik. Marvell (Mitchell) 
has also come in for a share of the suspicion; and although, 
perhaps, I ought to feel flattered by the association of my 
work with the name of either author or authorling, yet it does 
really seem that my unpretending and straightforward sen- 
tences show very little to evidence the same paternity with 
the contortions and abruptnesses of The Battle Summer. To 
say the least of it, my errors against grammar have not been 
wilful; and my arrangement of style has not looked toward 
the quackery of dramatic effect. Yet withal the compliment 
is acknowledged, since the same gentleman has written a 
most creditable book of travels, which of an idle hour will 
repay a second reading. Mr. Marvell is certainly a promising 
young man, and with thus much of compliment to sustain 
him for the loss, I relieve him entirely of the new and un- 
necessarily imposed burden of authorship." ! The number 
closed with a tentative farewell from Timon. "My pub- 

1 See The Lorgnette, 1.286. It is likely that Mr. Mitchell spelled the name 
"Marvell" as a means of spoiling the scent still more. 

215 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

lisher informs me as the sheets are passing through the press 
that the twelve numbers now issued will make a fair-sized 
volume; you may possibly, therefore," he wrote, "miss the 
ensuing week your accustomed visitant; and whether it will 
make its appearance the coming month will depend very 
much on my own whim, and the humor of the town. But 
do not be misled ... it has been thrown out by some 
that the Lorgnette was nothing more than an eccentric 
charity; and one very grave and important publisher assured 
me that it was wholly paid for by its author, and then placed, 
printed and bound, in the hands of the publisher. The dear 
public will allow me to correct this error, and to assure them 
that though they may laugh at my labor, they are paying for 
the laugh. Nor is this said in vanity, but in justification; 
for nothing seems to me a more absurd charity than for a man 
to publish his thoughts when the public do not care enough 
for his thought to pay for the printing. Such a man (and 
on this point my opinion will be obnoxious to many town- 
authors) had much better every way drop his surplus pence 
into the parish poor box; in that case, he may console himself 
with knowing that no one is pestered with his thought, and 
that some poor souls may possibly be stuffing their bellies 
with his money. John Timon neither owes any man, nor is 
he any man's creditor. He leaves off, if he leaves off, as 
fairly as he started; and he will be at liberty to begin when- 
ever his whim directs." l 

Toward the end of April the scent had begun to grow 
uncomfortably warm. "Some quick means must be hit 
upon to bluff suspicion hereabouts," wrote Donald to Hunt- 
ington, from Norwich (May ist). "They are strongly on 
the track, and the scent lies well. I have been asked a 

1 The Lorgnette, 1.292-293. See also p. 174 of this biography. 
2l6 



SATIRIST AND DREAMER 

half-dozen times, and have in some instances made a poor 
figure of it. You came in for a little of it. Now under that 
notion couldn't something be done in the courier? For in- 
stance, haven't you a friend who could notice the Lorgnette 
in a paragraph for Sykes, and say ' the impression that this 
is written by a gentleman of this city — at least [by] a native 
of Norwich, is wholly erroneous, and we have the amplest 
authority for denying it. Indeed, the severe way in which 
Mr. Marvel is treated would forbid the belief ?' The last 
part perhaps is questionable; the first by means of the equi- 
voque will work well, and if published, I will get Raymond to 
copy into Courier and Enquirer." 

Huntington, who was just then negotiating for a trans- 
ference of Lorgnette publication into other hands, replied 
(May 3d): "In reference to the Norwich suspicions: Now, 
there is a wide way between suspicion and proof. Let the 
heathen rage. Live down the charge, or face the music and 
lie it down, as the casuists in such cases allow. A disclaimer 
in the Courier (which I see you very properly write with a 
small c) would, to my seeming, be very ill advised, and [would] 
strengthen suspicion in the right direction. Besides that, 
so far as I am concerned, the charge is not direct nor general 
enough to call for it. Were I to take the pains to say I was 
not so and so, the not particularly agreeable comment would 
be, 'Who the devil said you were?' The ambiguity of the 
disclaimer would, I think, be appreciated and resolved very 
readily. No, no, such a movement would betray too much 
anxiety. The indifference of innocence is your card. It 
surely will be no difficult matter by means of the newspapers 
and correspondents to treat the topics of the city in a way 
to show that the writer is an eye and ear witness of the doings 
of yesterday; e. g., a line from an anniversary address (quoted 

217 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

direct, with a verbal alteration, from the Tribune report), a 
turn, a bonnet, a blunder of an actor or auditor at last night's 
opera, which none but an auditor could have seen or heard, 
the Perrine pavemeut, etc., etc., these will be your defence 
by alibi. Save the country and provincial-city topics till 
your return to the metropolis; cram on Greece, St. Peters- 
burg, Timbuctoo, or some other where you never were in 
to prove that John Timon.is familiar with the very paving 
stones of those parts. Meantime, hurry out the reveries. 
Send Dana a letter from Agawam. Stop at the Irving or 
Astor and get yourself announced on your return. Don't 
come back these three weeks. I will try to make the Doctor 
[Fordyce Barker] send you some hints from the opera to- 
morrow night — it's last night, by the way — Huntington's 
gallery closes, too, this week — and the anniversaries begin. 
The daily papers will keep you informed of these things, of 
the theatre, etc. Maybe as trifles to prove yourself here, 
these may be of service: Stuart & Co. have just begun tearing 
away at corner of Broadway and Chamber preparatory to 
enlargement; parsons arriving to get pudding for the faithful 
and attend anniversaries; gay white and red curtains (not to 
be praised) at the Irving House dining room; all manner 
of drab felt hats coming out with the spring; theatre full of 
strangers . . . etc. Any distinguished scamp, gentleman, 
or officer (see morning papers at SafFqrd & Parker's) at the 
Irving or Astor can be met the day of his arrival in Broad- 
way. If I go to Brougham's Benefit, you shall hear of it. 
That circus matter is not markedly wonderful. Jack Shep- 
herd et id omne playing at the Bowery in a parallel course 
with W. Shakespeare. . . ." 

"I accept fully your return suggestions about the Courier 
(with the small capital), and shall fight the matter out in 

218 



SATIRIST AND DREAMER 

dignified quiet," Donald humbly agreed (May 6th). "You 
know you are authorized to say I have denied it — to Dana, 
and to as many more as you choose. " 

Up to the completion of the twelfth number Donald had 
himself borne all the expenses of publication. He was now 
becoming convinced that if he could enter into a satisfactory 
arrangement with a publishing house whereby they would 
assume all the expenses of publication on a royalty basis, it 
would be more advantageous all round. He felt the work 
would be pushed to better advantage by a company entirely 
responsible for its success. Latterly, in spite of all the ardor 
of Master Kernot, as he and his confidants called the little 
Englishman, Donald had a growing conviction that his maga- 
zine was not handled with sufficient enterprise. Huntington 
thereupon approached Stringer & Townsend and began nego- 
tiations for a new basis of publication. "I am this instant," 
he informed Donald (April 30th), "home from an interview 
with Mr. Stringer, with whom I have bargained. ... On 
being told that Ik Marvel, D. G. Mitchell, and J. Timon 
were but an unitarian individual, expresses much surprise, 
with great familiarity in regard to the works of the two 
gentlemen first mentioned — evidently well tickled with his 
bargain at this discovery — had seen you often, but thought 
somehow that Ik Marvel was a 'large man.' ... So go 
right on and 'treat the town* soon with a new dish. Cry 
aloud and spare not. If foolish individuals standing in the 
front rank of folly choose to think themselves aimed at, it 
is their fault; don't regard their vanity, but blaze away at 
the whole column, and no blank cartridges. . . . Stringer 
appreciates the importance of mumness to the full; e. g., he 
does not mean to let Townsend know who you are ( !) " On 
the 3d of May Huntington closed the contract. "S. & T. are 

219 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

bricks, trumps, especially S., and mean to push the L. to 
the utmost limit; a new placard every week, etc.," he wrote 
exultingly at the close of negotiations. "And now you are 
fixed," he concluded, "per contract, with employment per- 
fectly honest, quite honorable, and profitable enough to pay 
for necessaries and leave a trifle over for drinks; duke et 
decorum, as Rev. Mr. Woodbury would say; so come on, 
'hold not thine hand aback/" 

After five more months of the same rare fun, Donald 
brought The Lorgnette to a close with the twelfth number of 
the second series, dated October 9th, 1850. The venture had 
been more profitable than he had anticipated. According to 
an account rendered by Baker & Scribner on the 10th of June 
1850, almost 5,000 copies of the first twelve numbers had 
been sold. Stringer & Townsend reported (April 28th, 1851) 
a sale of almost 9,000 copies of the second twelve numbers, 
and 3,000 copies of the first and second series in book form. 
This last report showed a net copyright due to Mr. Mitchell 
of $921.23. The work came to a fourth edition published in 
1 85 1 by Charles Scribner, with a new preface signed by Ik 
Marvel. In this edition the authorship was for the first 
time virtually acknowledged. 

Donald had not written the papers which make up The 
Lorgnette in any spirit of levity; he had put into them sin- 
cerity and earnestness. To this fact, no doubt, may be at- 
tributed much of their success. In closing, he spoke the 
faith that was in him: 

It is now ten months, my dear Fritz, since I first put on the 
dignity of print, and undertook to tell you something of our life in 
town. As I then said, a hap-hazard ramble over many portions of 
the world, and a feeling that some modest acknowledgment was 
due from me for the rich amusement that the public had so long 

220 



SATIRIST AND DREAMER 

and gratuitously afforded, prompted me to begin. I had also a 
hope that while my letters would relieve the plethora of much and 
long observation, they might in their small way do a trifle of good. 

But it was no part of my purpose to make my work altogether a 
public charity; for I had an honest conviction — not currently 
entertained by our town writers — that deeds of charity would be 
much more acceptable in the way of spare pennies, than in any 
dribblings from a pen. 

A paragraphist in the Literary World has indeed thrown out a 
hint that nothing but a long purse could justify the author's 
continuance of his labor. I understand this to be a pleasant inti- 
mation (coming too from an experienced source) that the Lorgnette 
was a bill of expense to its author. To have my open avowal on 
this point doubted by you, Fritz, would grieve me; a doubt from 
some quarters might provoke me; but there are still others, I am 
happy to say, where the expression of such doubt is neither griev- 
ous, provoking, nor important. 

I have amused myself from time to time during the summer 
with sauntering into my publisher's shop to overhear the remark 
and to watch the pleasant brusquerie of my excellent friend, Mr. 
Kernot. Of late, however, he has grown suspicious of middle- 
aged gentlemen who wear a half country air; he is by no means so 
communicative as at the first; and only the other day he honored 
me with a look of searching scrutiny that required all my self- 
possession to withstand. 

The public has seen fit to regard these letters in the light of 
strictures upon the town society. It was by no means my wish to 
give them so narrow a limit; nor has my playful raillery borne with 
it, surely, any of the assumption of a judge. Still, the public are 
welcome to their decision; and in view of it, I cannot better close 
than by setting down more pointedly than I have yet done, a few 
of my old-fashioned opinions. 

221 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

But first let me spare a word for those learned coxcombs who 
consider all talk about society as sheer twaddle. That a man who 
knows nothing of the courtesies of life, should sneer at them is quite 
natural; but that he should plume himself upon his ignorance is not 
a little extraordinary. . . . The habits of amusement, the every- 
day practices, and, in short, all those observances which go to make 
up what is called fashion, have a very considerable bearing upon the 
virtue, the manliness, and the intelligence of a people. To slight 
them, while careful about the ordinary claims of education, is to 
neglect the atmosphere we breathe, while anxious only for our 
meat and drink. 

I have been accused of balking the main issues, and of playing 
around matters which needed the firm touch of analysis; but I take 
the liberty of saying that these scattered shots upon the town have 
had their aim. ... It seemed to me to be an honest man's work 
to have a crack at those follies which were growing upon our newly- 
formed society; and the more honest, since nearly all the journals 
of the town were approving and magnifying whatever fashion de- 
cided upon doing. 

The absurd intimations which I have seen in some country 
papers that my letters were written merely to unfold the preten- 
sions of the vulgarly rich, or the follies of an upper ten thousand, I 
wholly abjure; if I cordially detest anything, it is those eternal 
railers at an imaginary set whom they thus designate. It is not 
necessary to be rich, to be vulgar; nor to be vulgar, to be rich. 
Folly has been my target, wherever it appeared; and I have en- 
deavored, by the wide range of my observations, to do away with 
the suspicion that I ranked vice by social grades, or heaped upon 
wealth or fashion any gratuitous reproach. 

The tone of all my letters has been republican; they have 
tended, in their humble way, towards the dismantling of those awk- 
ward and vulgar scaffoldings by which our social architects of the 
town were trying to build up something like the gone-by feudal fab- 

222 



SATIRIST AND DREAMER 

rics of the old world. I have pandered to none of the finical tastes 
of an "Upper Ten" — to none of the foolish longings of a "Lower 
Ten," and to none of the empty and ill-directed clamor of those 
who affect to guide the million. John Timon, in the pride of his 
citizenship, as a republican, and as a New Yorker, acknowledges 
no Upper Ten ! He will live where he chooses to live; and he will 
amuse himself as he chooses to amuse himself. He will neither 
take his building schemes from the nod of Mr. Such-an-one, nor 
wear his glove at the beck of Such-another. He will try to consult 
those proprieties which reason, good feeling, and good custom 
suggest; and he will mingle in such circles as will receive him kindly, 
as will greet him with a manly cordiality, and entertain him by 
such frankness, intelligence, and refinement, as he thinks he can 
appreciate. 

Nor do I apprehend that these things are to be bounded by 
houses, or by streets; or that any man, or any set of men, can lay 
down the codes by which I am to reach them, or prescribe the ways 
in which I am to enjoy them. Good habit, in a free society, is as 
much a matter of taste and circumstance, as coloring in painting, 
or the management of the rod in angling; and who, pray, is going 
to give us rules for the precise amount of chromes, or for the exact 
length of line, or the dressing of a hackle? 

Good breeding does not necessarily suppose a knowledge of all 
conventionalities; and a true gentleman can in no way better show 
his gentle blood than by the grace and modesty with which he 
wears his ignorance of special formulas. If there be not a native 
courtesy in a man which tells him when he is with gentlemen, and 
when with the vulgar; and which informs him, as it were by intui- 
tion, what will conspire with the actions of the first, and offend 
against the sympathies of the last, he may study till doomsday his 
etiquette, and his French Feuilleton, and remain a boor to the end ! 

To conclude — as the Doctors say — let me suggest that our town 
society needs nothing so much as an added geniality, honesty, and 
simplicity. It hardly seems to me of so much importance that our 

223 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

streets should show a Paris pardessus but ten days old, or a new 
polka in the fortnight of its introduction along the Faubourg St. 
Honore, as that social fellowship should become easy and refined, 
and a little wit, taste, and grace be grafted upon the body of our 
fashion. 

And now Fritz, 

"Timon hath done his reign !" 

Mr. Mitchell never saw reason to regret the opinions he 
voiced in his little periodical; and he believed in their sound- 
ness to the end. "The Lorgnette ', whose smart couplet of vol- 
umes may be encountered at times in old bookshops, and 
which belonged also to the early period of the writer's 
craft in books, I should on many counts have heartily greeted 
in this embanked edition — assured that much of its satiric 
comment and earnest sermonizing against the worship of 
Mammon would still have aptness and significance. ,, With 
these words Mr. Mitchell bade farewell to the books when in 
1907 they were omitted from the Edge wood edition of his 
collected wwks. 

The anonymity of The Lorgnette> and the accompanying 
attempt on the part of the public to search out the true 
authorship, led to important results. One of the tests ap- 
plied by the zealous searchers was that of style. When, there- 
fore, The Lorgnette had reached its twelfth number, and sus- 
picion of authorship had begun, as Mr. Mitchell said, to 
settle down upon his own name "with an ugly pertinacity," 
it was in the matter of style that he determined to throw the 
curious off the scent. It so happened that under his pseu- 
donym of Ik Marvel he had contributed a paper to the 
Southern Literary Messenger ', which, under the title of "A 
Bachelor's Reverie," appeared in the issue of September 
1849, an d wa s reprinted with the author's permission in the 

224 



SATIRIST AND DREAMER 

first number of Harper s New Monthly Magazine, January 
1850. "Its style and strain being wholly unlike that of the 
Lorgnette, it occurred to me," wrote Mr. Mitchell, "that it 
would be a politic thing, and further my purpose of mysti- 
fying the literary quidnuncs, to add more papers in a kindred 
vein, and publish all together as an independent volume. I 
wrote, therefore, the two succeeding chapters, and submitted 
them, with the one previously printed, to Mr. Fields (then 
of the house of Ticknor & Fields), who declined their publi- 
cation. I had made this proposal to a Boston house, be- 
cause my well-known and most friendly relations with Mr. 
Charles Scribner, and his half-understood privity to the 
origin of the Lorgnette papers, would (in the event of my pub- 
lishing the new book with him) go to fasten the suspected 
authorship more strongly upon me. . . . Failing of an out- 
side publisher, the little book was speedily put through the 
press by Mr. Scribner — though with only moderate hopes, 
on his part, of its success. It was, however, in a vein that 
struck people as being somewhat new; it made easy reading 
for young folks; it laid strong hold upon those of romantic 
appetites; and reached within a very few months a sale which 
surprised the publisher as much as it surprised the author.'' l 
In this modest way Mr. Mitchell described the genesis of 
the book which almost immediately made him famous. 2 

Reveries of a Bachelor was published in December 1850. 
Before the month was gone it became evident that the author 
had gripped the public. Within a year from the date of 
publication approximately 14,000 copies had been sold. 
That is equivalent now to a sale of almost 70,000 copies 

1 Reveries of a Bachelor, xix-xxi. 

8 It is popularly believed that Mr. Mitchell wrote Reveries in his little farm- 
house at Salem. He assured his family that he had never, to the best of his recol- 
lection, spent a night under its roof. 

225 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

within a twelvemonth. Reveries went straight to the heart, 
and readers hastened to assure the author of their delight 
in his work. At last he felt that he was coming into his 
own. 

Meanwhile, during the summer of 185 1, Fletcher Harper, 
who was then fathering Harper's New Monthly Magazine, 
reached out for the young author. "We wish, monthly, one 
or two pages of gems, criticisms on society, etc., etc., for our 
magazine, to come under a new head," wrote Mr. Harper. 
"The articles ought, generally, I suppose, to be short and 
lively. We wish the arrangement to be confidential — en- 
tirely so — and that you should not be known as the author for 
the present." In acceding to the proposal, Donald suggested 
the "Editor's Easy Chair" as suitable heading for the new 
department; and his "first installment of gossip" from "the 
red-backed easy chair" appeared in Harper s, October 1851. 
He continued the papers until 1855. In succeeding years, 
George William Curtis and William Dean Howells, carrying 
on the tradition established by Mr. Mitchell, added lustre 
to the department. So long and so successful was the con- 
nection of both Mr. Curtis and Mr. Howells with the a Edi- 
tor's Easy Chair" that their names have become identified 
with it in a kind of proprietary way. We need to remember 
that while the idea originated with Fletcher Harper, the name 
was bestowed by Mr. Mitchell, and the trend and tone of the 
papers established by him. Indeed, Mr. Howells in later 
years took occasion to pay tribute to this work of Mr. 
Mitchell, "the graceful and gracious Ik Marvel . . . never 
unreal in anything but his pretence of being the real editor 
of the magazine." l 

Elated over the success of the Reveries, Donald deter- 

1 See Harper's Magazine (December 1900), 153-158. 
226 



SATIRIST AND DREAMER 

mined to write another book of similar character. The 
experiment was not without hazard, as his friends were quick 
to point out to him. "I well remember/' he wrote, "that 
at a Yale College gathering 1 which followed closely upon the 
publication of the Reveries , a classmate of mine (now I think 
holding high judicial position) took me aside and warned me 
with a very grave and solemn countenance, against being 
made a puppet of the publishers: he had seen with good- 
natured distress that I was to follow up the first success with 
another book in the same vein and at short order: he feared 
the result; it was driving things too hard. I listened grate- 
fully; but, it must be said, with dulled ears." 2 

Having made arrangements to live with Mr. and Mrs. 
Allan Sisson, then in tenancy of the Goddard farm, he turned 
to the Salem country for inspiration and quiet, and took up 
his abode in the upper west room of the Elmgrove house, the 
room which he had always occupied when Mary Goddard 
was mistress of the home. There, amid silences and memo- 
ries, he wrought Dream Life. "Young sentiment was then so 
jubilant in me that it seemed to me I could have reeled it off 
by scores; nor indeed did spontaneity prove lacking," he 
wrote in retrospect. "It was to a quaint old farm-house 
shadowed by elms, in a very quiet country (whose main 
features peep out from the opening chapters of Spring, 
Summer, and Autumn in this volume), that I went to finish 
my summer task — the book being promised for early winter. 
There was scant, but bracing, farmer's fare for me; and a 
world of encouragement in the play of sun and shadow over 

1 The gathering referred to was undoubtedly the decennial reunion of Mr. 
Mitchell's class, held at the New Haven House, Wednesday evening, July 30th, 
185 1. The classmate must have been William Law Learned, later, and for many 
years, a member of the supreme court of New York. 

2 See all of the 1883 Preface of Dream Life. 

227 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

the tranquil valley landscape, and in the murmur of the 
brooks that I had known of old. In six weeks I had com- 
pleted my task." 1 The dream of 1848 was fulfilled. "I 
shall write an eclogue some day or other, and make the pas- 
torals pipe it in that old valley of our farms." When Mary 
Goddard read Dream Life and Reveries of a Bachelor, that 
sentence from Donald's letter must have come once more to 
her mind. 2 

A few months before he had begun the writing of Dream 
Life, Donald had made the acquaintance of Washington Ir- 
ving, and had visited him at Sunnyside; now as the book was 
nearing publication, he sought Mr. Irving's permission to 
dedicate to him the little volume. "Though I have a great 
disinclination in general to be the object of literary oblations 
and compliments," replied Mr. Irving, "yet in the present 
instance I have enjoyed your writings with such peculiar 
relish, and been so drawn toward the author by the qual- 
ities of head and heart evinced in them, that I confess I 
feel gratified by a dedication, overflattering as I may deem 
it, which may serve as an outward sign that we are cordially 
linked together in sympathies and friendship." With its 
sincere and delicately expressed letter of dedication, Dream 
Life was published in December 1851. "Its sale the first 
year," wrote Mr. Mitchell, "went beyond that of the Rev- 
eries ; but afterward kept an even range at about one-third 
,4 less than that of its forerunner. And this proportion has 
held with curious persistence; no accident of sales having 
again carried its score up to that of the first book, or brought 
it more than a third below." The relative proportion of 
sales mentioned by Mr. Mitchell has been likewise curiously 
persistent since he wrote the foregoing words in 1883. 

1 Dream Life, vi. * 2 See p. 203. 

228 



SATIRIST AND DREAMER 

"Dream Life grew out of the Reveries even as one bubble 
piles upon another from the pipe out of which young breath 
blows them into bigness; and it was largely because the first 
floated so well and so widely that life and consequence were 
given to this companion book," were the apologetic words 
of Mr. Mitchell in 1883. "I am half ashamed at this late 
day," he continued, "to give so poor excuse for the writing 
of Dream Life ; and every book should have a better reason 
for being wrought, than its good chance of catching a popular 
tide, and floating upon it to success. There is always danger 
of strain in work so undertaken and of weak duplication, 
and vague echoes of foregone things." We know that it 
was not alone the success of the Reveries that led to the pro- 
duction of Dream Life. It was rather the glowing heart of 
the man. The books were the outgrowth of the stresses to 
which for more than a score of years his soul had been sub- 
jected. He could have written others in similar strain with- 
out weak duplication. Indeed, he had planned one other to 
be called Hearts of Girlhood. As sketched by him, it was to 
be in four parts: "The Faint Hearted," "The Broken 
Hearted," "The False Hearted," "The True Hearted." Mr. 
Mitchell himself evidently had faith in his ability to write 
it. "If this book had been written, on the wave of success 
which attended the Reveries I have no doubt 't would have 
disputed claims with it," runs the note which more than 
fifty years after the notion had presented itself to him he 
placed on the margin of the page containing the preliminary 
outline of Hearts of Girlhood. 

The great and immediate success of Reveries and Dream 
Life, the quick homage paid to the young author by people of 
all ages, and the extravagant devotion of girls and young 
women, were enough to turn the head of any but a man of 

229 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

sound common sense and sterling character. From far dis- 
tant States and Territories of the Union, from " the isles of the 
ocean," from France and Italy, from Norway and Sweden, 
from the heart of Germany, the mails brought to Ik Marvel 
striking testimony that he had touched the common heart 
of humanity. The "packet of letters" to which he refers 
in the "Second Reverie" received plentiful addition, and 
needed new and larger ribbons. In fact, the one packet 
grew to many, and the many continued to grow until death 
claimed the "Great Dreamer." Languishing Adas, and 
Claras, and Carries, and Jennies, and Dorothys, and Mary 
"darlings," showered him with valentines. Other and more 
ardent maidens wrote to inquire whether the author really 
was a bachelor; and, with the assurance that their hearts 
alone could understand and comfort that of Ik Marvel, 
coyly offered themselves in marriage. Much verse was dedi- 
cated to him. Young people wrote for advice and sympathy 
in their own love-affairs. The old wrote to testify that age 
and experience confirmed the words of his pen. One young 
French musician dedicated a polka to Ik Marvel. With the 
cool judgment of maturer life, Mr. Mitchell came to feel that 
he had been the recipient of "absurd overpraise," and was 
of the opinion that because of it he had been led to under- 
value reputation. 

An amusing sidelight is thrown upon this period of fevered 
success by letters of Louis Mitchell to Mary Goddard. 
These letters also impart the interesting information that a 
new and supposedly more enduring kind of work was being 
urged upon Donald. The two brothers, Louis and Alfred, 
were in Europe when Reveries was published, though they 
were not long in hearing echoes of its praise. Louis out- 
wardly affected a scorn of sentiment, and loved to scoff 

230 



SATIRIST AND DREAMER 

good-naturedly at what he called "Don's vaporings." He 
was just the man to sprinkle cool irony upon the heat and 
flame of a young author's distemper. From Rome, under 
date of January 22d, he wrote to Mrs. Goddard: "I sent Don 
some interesting information the other day through Henry 
Huntington to whom I took it into my head to write. . . . 
By the way, his book has now been out a month. How does 
it go ? like hot cakes ? ... in case Henry Huntington should 
not receive my letter, tell Don that Enrica is married, and 
supposed by this time to be the mother of a young TURK. 
She is living in Constantinople. Alas, for romance ! How I 
went off in laughing when my landlady (who knows her) 
told me that, you, Mary, can imagine, I fancy. Lucky Don 
didn't know it when he was cooking up the Reveries — eh?" 
Again, about the ist of July 1851, he wrote from Paris: 
"I left Florence on the ist of May . . . staid in Venice . . . 
three weeks; then by the steamer to Tristi; thence to the 
Grotto of Adelsburg where Boldo told story. It is a curious 
cavern, and interesting to those who see it after reading the 
same; but more so to those who have read the same without 
seeing. ... I have seen Don's friend, Mr. Mann, who tells 
me Don has taken his stand among the first literary [men] 
of these times. . . . Don wouldn't make a good country 
squire, nor a merchant. The inevitable consequences of a 
wife are care and babies, and Don wouldn't like either after 
the first day or two. Can't he be persuaded to write some- 
thing that will last ? His Reveries are well enough in their 
way, but ten years hence they won't help him much. Let 
him write a history of Venice. He has the frame of it in 
his lecture. This, Mary, is between you and me. You know 
how he'd look if he saw it, especially just now with his laurels 
fresh and the dimes jingling in his pocket. No less true for 

231 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

all that, though. Huntington tried to start him on it be- 
fore I left, and then he seemed to take the idea kindly 
enough. How it will be now, I don't know. As to marry- 
ing, keep him talking about it, and it will be all right 
enough." 

The first large sales of the two little books diminished, of 
course, but they diminished only to settle down to a steady 
and widely extended circulation. In 1852 two separate, 
unauthorized editions were published in Great Britain. By 
1853 two separate, unauthorized translations of Reveries 
appeared in Paris — one in the Moniteur, the other in U Illus- 
tration. In 1 856 Karl Elze included both volumes in Alphons 
Diirr's collection 1 of "Standard American Authors," in Eng- 
lish; and in the same year a German translation by Ch . . . 
was published by Carl Meyer in Hanover. Both came to 
translation and wide circulation in many languages. In 
America, apart from those issued by the Scribners, Mr. 
Mitchell's authorized publishers, more than fifty totally 
different editions of both have been placed before the public. 

Mr. Mitchell was seemingly embarrassed by the warmth 
of the reception accorded the little volumes, and came to 
speak of them apologetically. He evinced surprise at the 
manner in which they had touched the heart, at the hold they 
had taken upon the public, at their enduring life. He was in 
the habit of insisting that he had written "very much better 
books every way." His attitude, however, grew in part out 
of his natural diffidence; at bottom, he cherished a deep 
respect and affection for these children of his youth. Re- 
ferring to the Reveries in 1883, he wrote: "I am not certain 
that I would blot out from staid people's knowledge what 

1 Published at Leipzig. Reveries was No. xv, Dream Life No. xvi, in the col- 
lection. 

232 



SATIRIST AND DREAMER 

they may count the idle vagaries and wanton word-leaps 
and the over-tenderness of this book, even though I could. 
Whatever the astute critics may think, I do not and will not 
believe that the boisterous and scathing and rollicking humor 
of our time has blown all of pathos and all of the more del- 
icate human sympathies into limbo." * 

In fact, he had strong belief in the honesties of the books, 
knowing well out of what stress of soul they had been born. 
"I wrote Dream Life while the glow was on," he once told 
me; and there can be no doubt that in it he expressed what 
were at the time the burning convictions of his heart. Nor 
did he ever have reason to question the fundamental truth of 
what he had written. He had expected criticism, and had 
been sharply subjected to much, upon the publication of the 
Reveries. When, therefore, he wrote Dream Life, he took 
occasion to say a word in self-defense. "This is a history of 
dreams," he began, "and there will be those who will sneer 
at such a history as the work of a dreamer." And then he 
proceeded to explain that dreams as he conceived of them 
are the very substance of man's truest life. "I can conceive 
no mood of mind more in keeping with what is to follow upon 
the grave, than those fancies which warp our frail hulks 
toward the ocean of the Infinite, and that so sublimate the 
realities of this being that they seem to belong to that 
shadowy realm whither every day's journey is leading." 2 
He asked people to believe only that portion of his work 
which "counts most toward the goodness of humanity," and 

1 See Reveries, xxii-xxiii. "I am now correcting proofs of the new edition of 
Reveries, the first volume of new issue of most of my books," he wrote to his 
daughter Elizabeth in 1883. "Oh, it is very young — whatever the syntax be! If 
I were rich, I should be tempted to put it all in the fire; and yet — there are some 
good things in it." 

2 See Dream Life, 5. 

*33 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

that tends to the upbuilding of faith; strongly convinced 
himself that both books counted for goodness of life and 
strengthening of faith. "The man, or the woman, who be- 
lieves well is apt to work well; and faith is as much the key 
to happiness here, as it is the key to happiness hereafter." l 
When the Nelsons brought out in Edinburgh an unauthorized 
edition of Dream Life, with the chapter on "Boy Religion" 
omitted, the omission displeased him perhaps more than the 
pirating of the book. "I could have wished," he wrote, 
"that the book had been altogether so good as to have justi- 
fied them in making the theft complete, or altogether so bad 
as to have kept them honestly aloof." He believed in the 
truth and the efficacy of that particular chapter; and, I 
doubt not, considered it as well-nigh the most valuable in 
the book. 

He did not like to regard these volumes as expressions of 
sentimentality, and that only; as pleasant fictions addressed 
to love-lorn swains and languishing maidens. It irritated him 
to have people refer to the pleasure they had taken in them 
in their "salad days"; he seemed to think such a remark to 
be in effect a slur. To be sure, he believed that in them he 
had spoken words of understanding, of sympathy, of con- 
solation, from the deepest springs of his common humanity; 
but he believed no less strongly that he had likewise spoken 
words of courage, of hope, of inspiration, and of duty. He 
believed, in short, that the books contained that which 
would at all times appeal to the highest and the best qualities 
of human nature. 

In his old age he was intensely gratified to learn that even 
after the lapse of forty-five years the spell of Reveries and 
Dream Life had not lost its hold upon such a man as Sir 

1 See Dream Life, 20. 
234 



SATIRIST AND DREAMER 

Robert Stout, New Zealand's famous jurist and statesman, 
upon whose estimate of the books Mr. Mitchell set much 
store. "These books," wrote Sir Robert, "are true litera- 
ture, and as such demand not a hasty perusal, but repeated 
careful reading. They enter into the feelings of old and 
young; and to all a message is delivered. When it is remem- 
bered that both books were written by a young man, the 
staidness, the calmness, and the judiciousness of the writer 
will appear surprising." 1 And most ' careful readers will 
agree with the substance of Sir Robert's opinion that when 
we close such books, the profound truth of the oft-quoted 
lines of England's greatest dramatist — lines which Mr. 
Mitchell placed upon the title-page of Dream Life as a clew 
to its interpretation — come home to us: 

We are such stuff 
As dreams are made of; and our little life 
Is rounded with a sleep. 

Many thousands of men could bear witness, as many 
hundreds have done, to the inspirational power of these 
books. Young men have found in them impulses to higher 
and nobler living, wise counsels upon the problems of life, 
trumpet-calls to duty. How many have made such passages 
as the following mottoes for daily living, we shall never know: 

He is a weak man who cannot twist and weave the threads of 
his feeling — however fine, however tangled, however strained, or 
however strong — into the great cable of Purpose, by which he lies 
moored to his life of Action.* 

Life is calling for earnestness, and not for regrets.' 

1 "A Night with Two Old Books," in the Press of Christchurch, New Zealand, 
December 29th, 1902. 

2 Reveries, 55. * Reveries, 119. 

*3S 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

The past belongs to God; the present only is ours. And short 
as it is, there is more in it and of it than we can well manage. 
That man who can grapple it, and measure it, and fill it with his 
purpose, is doing a man's work; none can do more; but there are 
thousands who do less. 1 

Stop not, loiter not, look not backward, if you would be among 
the foremost. The great Now — so quick, so broad, so fleeting — is 
yours; in an hour it will belong to the Eternity of the Past. The 
temper of life is to be made good by big, honest blows; stop striking 
and you will do nothing; strike feebly, and you will do almost as 
little. Success rides on every hour; grapple it, and you may win; 
but without a grapple, it will never go with you. Work is the 
weapon of honor, and who lacks the weapon will never triumph.* 

You will learn . . . that there is no genius in life like the ge- 
nius of energy and industry. You will learn that all the tradi- 
tions so current among very young men that certain great char- 
acters have wrought their greatness by an inspiration, as it were, 
grow out of a sad mistaken 

Resolve is what makes a man manliest; — not puny resolve, not 
crude determination, not errant purpose; but that strong and inde- 
fatigable will which treads down difficulties and dangers as a boy 
treads down the heaving frost-lands of winter — which kindles his 
eye and brain with a proud pulse-beat toward the unattainable.* 

In a pleasing tribute, Mr. James Lawler has called atten- 
tion to this inspirational, this heartening, quality of Mr. 
Mitchell's work: 

Yet, Strong Enchanter of the Hearth, 
To us thou never canst expire. 
Oft when our inward light is low, 

1 Reveries, 219. 2 Reveries, 237. 

3 Dream Life, 134-135. * Dream Life, 207--208. 

236 



SATIRIST AND DREAMER 

We'll gather 'round thy beech-wood fire 
To dream amid thy rods and books 
Of wider times and larger men, 
Till, heartened by thy sympathy, 
We buckle on our arms again.* 

This is not the place to undertake a critical estimate of 
Reveries and Dream Life; such an estimate should be the 
work of a critic, not of a biographer. Popularity and great 
sales do not necessarily indicate true worth, nor are they 
any guaranty of enduring fame. It is perhaps too early to 
attempt an evaluation of these books. But this much can 
be said. The vitality which they have shown for now almost 
a century seems to indicate qualities that belong to enduring 
literature; qualities that men do not willingly allow to perish. 
The books are true to the best thoughts and emotions of 
humanity, and to that extent are beyond the power of time. 
Already they have become American classics. That which 
has kept alive the work of Izaak Walton, and Sir Thomas 
Browne, and Charles Lamb, and Washington Irving, will 
also keep alive the Reveries of a Bachelor and Dream Life, 
And by virtue of these books, Mr. Mitchell will rank along 
with his beloved Irving. 

During the years 1850 and 1851, Mr. Mitchell had per- 
haps earned more with his pen than he could have earned in 
any other way. He now felt sure that if driven to it by 
necessity he could earn a livelihood by literature. As yet, 
however, he seemed to himself no nearer a choice of life-work 
than he was in 1849. As a ^ rst ste P toward a decision, he 
had in 1850 sold his Salem farm. He was planning to 
secure a country place to his liking upon which he could 
settle down and devote himself to farming and literature — 

1 See Mr. Lawler's "Ik Marvel," Canadian Magazine, February 1909. 

237 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

to farming primarily; to literature as a recreation and a 
delight. He was at the crest of his wave of fame. Society 
was seeking and flattering him. All circles were open. 
And yet, with all circles open, he knew not which way to 
turn. The future, however, was dawning before him more 
brightly than he knew. 



238 



IX 

AN EVENTFUL TWELVEMONTH 

A new book of hope is sprung wide open in my life: a hope of 
home ! — Reveries of a Bachelor, 262. 

The season of triumph which followed almost immedi- 
ately upon the publication of Reveries and Dream Life 
undoubtedly interfered with creative work on the part of the 
author. It is certain, at least, that for several months, 
apart from his contributions to Harper's, Donald did not 
apply himself seriously to literature. Only in 1852 did he 
begin The Fudge Papers for the Knickerbocker Magazine. 
For several months after the publication of Dream Life he 
lived on in his usual unsatisfied, unsettled way, varying his 
place of residence from New York City to Norwich; or spend- 
ing the time in travel. 

As the summer of 1852 approached, his old restlessness 
having returned upon him, and his fancy being for the mo- 
ment dulled, he decided to see Europe once more. While in 
New York arranging for his passage, he learned that Wash- 
ington Irving, for the first time in many years, was enjoying 
a season at Saratoga Springs. He forthwith determined to 
see Mr. Irving for a few days before sailing. Once under the 
spell of Irving's spirit, it was but natural for Donald to linger. 
Where, better than at Saratoga, could the harmless vanities 
of a famous young bachelor-author be fed ? To share the 
morning walks of Washington Irving, to be known as his 
friend, to be praised publicly by him, to be sought after on 

239 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

every hand — these were joys not to be quickly foregone, 
even by so retiring and modest a man as Mr. Mitchell. 

The portrait by Charles Loring Elliott brings before us 
the features of the Ik Marvel who, during that Saratoga 
summer, enjoyed the culmination of his triumph. As we 
look upon it, there rises before us an image of a slender, 
active young man — not above medium height — with deli- 
cately moulded face, and large, dreamful blue eyes. About 
the shapely head fall brown masses of careless, wind-blown 
hair; and across the features lies an elusive half-shadow of 
sorrow. The clothes are tasteful, but loose and easy-fitting, 
as if designed for comfort rather than for looks. A large red 
silk scarf — expression of a lifelong love of color — helps us 
to understand why, as he flashed across the horizon of that 
fashionable society, he came to be called the "Comet's 
Tail." Morning after morning we see this young man stroll- 
ing along the walk to the Spring in company with an older, 
more soberly dressed gentleman, whose face and eyes pro- 
claim that he, too, is a dreamer and acquainted with grief. 
We listen to their conversation, watch the animated ex- 
pression of their faces, hear their gay laughter. In the pres- 
ence of the Elliott portrait we can forget the present and re- 
vive the past. 

Among others who came from the South in those days to 
spend their summers at Saratoga were members of the family 
of William Bull Pringle, a rice-planter, of King Street, 
Charleston, and Society Hill, South Carolina. It must have 
been toward the end of July or the first of August that Mr. 
and Mrs. Pringle arrived at the Springs with their daughters, 
Mary Frances and Susan, and their niece, Susan Alston. 
Scarcely had they arrived, when a common friend rushed to 
Mary with the news that presumably should have been most 

240 




Jk^nnL 



From a portrait of Mr. Mitchell by Charles Loring Elliot, painted about 1851. 



AN EVENTFUL TWELVEMONTH 

interesting from a young woman's point of view: "Ik Marvel 
is here. Don't you want to meet him?" Miss Pringle, it 
seems, was not in search of literary lions. "No," she re- 
plied to the surprised friend, "I don't want to meet him. 
If he wants to meet me, very well." When this reply was 
reported to Donald, it quite naturally piqued his curiosity 
and aroused his interest. Unwittingly, she had spoken just 
the words to attract a man of his character. He sought an 
introduction, and was charmed by Miss Pringle's radiant 
beauty. That she was more than merely beautiful, each day 
revealed to him. Her strong common sense, her disdain of 
the methods usually employed by the fashionable butter- 
flies who fluttered about the eligible, her tender and thought- 
ful devotion to her parents, disclosed to him the worth of her 
character. Almost before he knew it, his admiration had 
deepened into love. Europe vanished from his mind. To 
win the heart of this rare Southern girl now became his 
absorbing purpose. Under the watchful and benignant 
eyes of Washington Irving, the courtship proceeded. 

The very name — Mary — aroused in Donald the tenderest 
emotions, and he was not long in pressing whatever advan- 
tage lay in the intimate relation which it had thus far borne 
to his own life. Within a few days he gave to Miss Pringle 
a copy of Fresh Gleanings bearing this inscription: 

This first book of my author-life being dedicated 
to ' Mary/ seems, in so far, a fitting gift for my friend, 

Miss Mary Pringle; 

and I shall claim from her the same charity which 

her namesake has shown. ^ , n ... , « 

Dond G. Mitchell 

Saratoga Springs, "Ik Marvel." 

10 Aug. 1852. 

241 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

There, amid the pines of Saratoga, a new hope and a more 
compelling power than he had ever known were coming into 
his life. Little wonder that his memories of Saratoga never 
grew dim. "Is there an everlasting fountain of youth there 
upon the plains of Saratoga?" he asked, seventeen years 
later. "Or is it that an ever-new stream of bright, young 
faces is flowing thitherward, while we, looking on (even in 
picture) grow young again, and recall the gay old times 
when we quaffed the sparkling waters, when we sauntered 
under the heavy shadows of the pines, when we too could 
win a chance smile from some one of the provoking fair? 
Ah, well-a-day ! The fountain flows forever — the bubble 
and the sparkle fail not; but the fresh young blood it feeds 
and exalts must come to its season of loitering, of heaviness, 
and of rest. But loiter as it may, most times it leaps once 
again with quick flow over the memory of young days at 
Saratoga." 1 

Toward the end of August the Pringles went on to New- 
port and Boston, and thence by way of Portland across the 
White Mountains. Donald, full of strange emotions — "feel- 
ings like half-forgotten memories, mystical, dreamy, doubt- 
ful" — followed in their wake. On the 12th of September, 
from Portland, Maine, he wrote to Mary Goddard. We can 
read between the lines of this letter as Mrs. Goddard at the 
time could not. She doubtless thought that Donald was 
wandering in his old spirit of restlessness; she knew nothing 
as yet of the new passion that was struggling in his soul. 
"Here I am," he wrote, "a long way to the northward, in a 
storm which will very likely pass for the equinoctial. My 
stay at Newport was for some ten days, and only so so, for 
agree ability. My old friends, the Pringles, were there. . . . 

1 "At the Spring: Saratoga," in Hearth and Home (August 28th, 1869), 568. 

242 



AN EVENTFUL TWELVEMONTH 

I also saw, and passed a cozy forenoon with, Prof, and Mrs. 
Longfellow. He is a most agreeable man — nothing bookish 
about him — and Mrs. Longfellow is just what you might 
expect of Mary Ashburton, though not so pretty. I also 
dined very pleasantly with Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft, who 
showed me very kind attentions. . . . Whipple (the lec- 
turer, etc.) was very kind in his attentions at Boston, asking 
me to dine, and calling once or twice. I also received an 
invitation to lecture before the Boston Mercantile Library. 
I returned a conditional answer. It is my purpose to go 
across the White Mountains from here, and thence down the 
Connecticut to Norwich by the close of the week. The 
Pringles are making the same town, although, strange to 
say, I have not met them since leaving Newport. I am get- 
ting just now thoroughly tired of wandering, and follow it 
up for the sake (partly) of giving myself a surfeit, and ac- 
cumulating a stock of quiet content. Everybody asks me 
what work I am engaged upon, and I am sufficiently ashamed 
to plead guilty to — nothing." Now and then it was his good 
fortune to catch a glimpse of Miss Pringle — sometimes on the 
mountains, sometimes in the busy streets of cities. It ap- 
pears that his native shyness caused him to worship from 
afar; but he took care that an emissary now and then found 
its way to Miss Pringle. The inscription shows that on the 
28th of September he gave her a specially bound copy of 
Reveries, illustrated by Darley. Evidently he felt confident 
that its leaven would work. 

Only too soon did the delightful, tantalizing autumn pass, 
and the Pringles return to their Southern home. We can 
imagine the state of mind in which Donald turned to face 
the winter and its literary tasks. He struggled manfully 
for a time; but the Southland was calling, and he determined 

243 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

to go and put his fate to the touch. When, evidently unan- 
nounced, he reached Charleston in December, he was disap- 
pointed to find that Mary Pringle was away from home. He 
went on to Savannah and from there on the 23d of December 
wrote what was, in substance, a letter of proposal. All who 
have read with joy the letter to Margaret Boyne 1 will be glad 
to read the one into which Ik Marvel put not his fancy, but 
his whole self. Doubtless, as the two had strolled about the 
walks of Saratoga, or wandered over the free mountain spaces 
of New Hampshire, Donald had voiced the hope of one day 
preaching a sermon — a strictly private sermon — intended to 
do its hearer "good." Frustrated in his attempt to deliver 
such sermon, he turned to the preparation of an epistle ! 

Pulaski House, Savannah. 
23d Dec'r 1852. 

I cannot pass altogether out of the reach of Charleston without 
wishing Miss Pringle a most 'Merry Christmas/ and without ex- 
pressing my disappointment at not having found her in the city, 
and at being obliged to write a 'sermon' which I had hoped to 
whisper in her ear. 

You surely must remember our talk of a 'sermon;' — a sermon 
which, four or five successive times, I have tried to write; and have 
only failed of accomplishing, because I could not presume upon 
'doing you good.' 

To this limitation, you will remember that you confined me: and 
in view of it, had I not a most narrow measure of hope? 

But now you are away, and therefore I put upon paper what 
else I would most surely have whispered in your ear. 

I know you for a true lady in all gentleness, and in all pride of 
feeling; and as such I need not say (for you know it) that I have 
admired you, and esteemed you, and loved you. 

And now may I come back to Charleston in the hope of meeting 

1 See Dream Life, 232. 
244 



AN EVENTFUL TWELVEMONTH 

you with such avowal on my lips ? Or must I count your figure and 
manner and character only as a pleasant phantasm which has 
chased for a little while across the track of my vagrant and shadowy 
life? 

I am sure that with your true womanly discernment you know 
very much of my character already; and I shall tell you nothing 
more here, except that I am full of all the petulancies, and passion, 
and ambition, and pride, which belong to an American of thirty 
years. Nor have I any greater fortune to bestow than will provide 
the comforts of a quiet country life: — saving only such as can be 
wrought (with God's help) out of this hand and brain. 

You know me, Miss Pringle, too well to think that I would 
spend many words on what lies ever nearest to my heart. Do not, 
therefore, think me abrupt. 

I know you well enough to feel sure that your hand will never 
go where your heart does not wholly follow; and, if you write me 
that you love your southern home too well to leave it ever, I will 
bear the disappointment as stoutly as I can, and sincerely hope 
(as I do now) that God may bless you always ! 

Most truly yours, 

Donald G. Mitchell. 
To Miss Mary F. Pringle. 

P.S. A letter addressed to "Care of P. M. Judson, Esq., 
Macon, Geo.," will reach me there, or follow me to N. Orleans. 

Very truly D. G. M. 

Miss Pringle's reply gave him grounds for hope. As soon 
as his Southern wanderings could be conveniently terminated, 
he hastened to Charleston. His pleadings were not in vain; 
and there, on the 1st of February 1853 — the anniversary of 
her birth — in the historic old King Street home, he placed 
his ring upon Miss Pringle's finger. Of course, the first 
information went to Mary Goddard. "You will be sur- 
prised to find me here," he wrote on the evening of the 1st, 

245 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

"and still more surprised to hear that Miss Mary Pringle — 
than whom there is no lovelier person in the world — wears an 
engagement ring of my giving ! For the present keep this 
strictly in confidence. My only doubts and fears about the 
matter are whether I am worthy of her and can really make 
her happy. If you can say anything that will encourage me 
in this belief, pray do. I know that you will love her de- 
votedly when you know her, just as I know she will love you. 
She is not rich — at least she brings me no fortune; yet she 
gives up a home full of luxury and every charm of life to go 
where I may decide. Her father regrets that my home will 
not be here, and does not favor much the idea of my living 
in a small town of Connecticut. Two things would draw me 
strongly to Norwich; first and greatest, your presence there, 
and next the great beauty of the position. Whatever home I 
take, I do want to make famous for its beauties, and, with 
God's leave, I will make so. It is with some base regrets that 
I give up forever the thought of obtaining through marriage 
a property that I might spend in elegancies; but I am sure 
that good judgment, honesty, and good intent, confirm the 
course I have chosen. I have got a life of work before me, 
but I feel able to do it. If luxury had been supplied to me 
without effort, I fear I should have done very little. Life 
is not very long to be lived, after all; and what will make its 
end pleasantest must be the thought of honest and hearty 
work. For your sake, too, seeing that I might have assisted 
you somewhat, I could have wished that fate might have 
ordered differently; but still I will do for you what I can. In 
honest and sisterly sympathy I am sure that you will find in 
this new Mary, all you could wish; and in the possession of a 
most true and loving heart, I feel richer than very many 
with millions, and very much richer than I deserve." 

246 



AN EVENTFUL TWELVEMONTH 

Before leaving Charleston, he wrote one more letter to 
Mrs. Goddard, under date of February 5th. "Your last 
did find me in Charleston — a very contented lingerer — albeit 
the hotels were at the fullest, and my room execrable. You 
will readily believe that there must have been some outside 
influence to keep down the worry of my spirit — and there 
was. You know that I used to speak to you in terms of 
praise (which you half smiled at) of that other Mary who 
lives here; but all that praise was tame, compared to the 
estimate which I now have of her character. I cannot, nor 
shall I attempt to describe her to you. I know that you will 
love her; and I know that I love her more than I believed I 
could ever love anyone. Don't put this down for the ex- 
travagant flourish of one who is ensnared by a pretty face, or 
who is bewildered by excitement. I am as cool now (as I 
write you) as ever under the old porch in the shadow of the 
trees of Elmgrove ! My only doubt and only fear is that I 
am not worthy of so much gentleness, and truth, and dignity; 
and that I cannot make her happy. This fear almost haunts 
me. You know how I have worried you many a time by 
my petulance, and seeming selfishness; and you know that 
my unkindness (more apparent than real) has once or twice 
brought tears to your eyes. Now if I thought that I should 
so wrong, so sweet and so confiding a nature as I know is 
now bound to mine, I should almost relent even now, and 
wish to break the tie which seems to me a new life. Do you 
think that I can be trusted ? If ever I am living near you, I 
shall hope and insist that you will reproach me for whatever 
seems a forgetfulness of her pleasure who will ' for better or 
for worse' tie her fate to mine." 

Regretfully he found himself once more in New York and 
Norwich wrestling with the duties of every-day life. "My 

247 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

work chains me to-day/' he wrote Miss Pringle (March 2d, 
1853); "and after so long idlesse, and so enthralling thoughts 
as have latterly belonged to me, I find it very hard to give 
my mind to the commonplaces of an 'Easy Chair/ or the 
insipidities of ' Fudge. '" The Fudge Papers ran in the 
Knickerbocker Magazine from January 1852 to November 
1854. Such faults of structure and style as the work ex- 
hibits — and the author himself felt they were many — 
must be ascribed to the conditions under which it was pro- 
duced. It is asking too much of any author to write a mas- 
terpiece during the season of courtship and honeymoon. 

During those winter and spring months of 1853, the best 
of Donald's thoughts were occupied with the future; the 
best of his energies given to planning for it. An almost 
daily correspondence with Miss Pringle helped to reconcile 
him to distance and absence. It may be well to say a Word 
about this correspondence. It was not literary like that of 
Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning. As might be ex- 
pected in one of Mr. Mitchell's nature, his love-letters were 
for the most part strongly individual, intended for the eye of 
but one. There cannot be gathered from them long para- 
graphs of literary criticism, or clever comments upon the 
men and the events of the period. The letters of both lovers 
were written from the heart, not from the intellect; they are 
tenderly and sweetly beautiful with that kind of beauty 
which fades in the strong light of blazing noon. Apart from 
a few extracts, therefore, they shall remain where Mr. 
Mitchell would wish them to remain — safe from the eyes of 
the curious. Such extracts as are given have been chosen 
for the light which they throw upon Mr. Mitchell's char- 
acter; for the manner in which they reveal the sources of 
that restlessness which harassed him for years, the spirit 

248 



AN EVENTFUL TWELVEMONTH 



in which he approached marriage, the plans which were 
forming in his mind, and those quick alternations of joy 
and gloom which marked his life. I shall arrange them in 
order: 

To Mary Frances Pr ingle. 

(New York, March 1st and 2d, 1853.) — The sight of New York 
extravagance and brilliancy again, in no way heightens my desire 
to follow in its train; but rather confirms my hope and desire for 
that even and tranquil quietude which comes from a happy home 
where trees and flowers befriend us. 

Ever that image of a modest cottage rich in all that makes life 
dear, floats before my vision; and ever, in the vision, your face and 
figure float, commending it fourfold to my heart, and quickening 
my intent to make it real. 

Your letter is altogether like you — earnest and full of that 
warmth of feeling which, in you, I love so much. Not a poetic, 
or a Blanche Amory glow, that goes out in the expression; but one 
pure and steady "like an anthracite fire." Read the chapter 1 and 
believe it all written to you, and my heart written in it, and over it. 

(New York, March 4th, 1853.) — What do you say to the broker 
business? Fancy it thus: 



D. G. Mitchell 


No. 10 Wall Street 


Bill Broker and General Agent 


For Negotiating Loans, etc. 


Terms Moderate 


June 1, 1853. 



Or supposing me keeping by the poet's calling, can you imagine 

yourself reading some day or other a newspaper paragraph run- 

1 See Reveries of a Bachelor, 69-86. 

249 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

ning this way: "We understand with pain that the accomplished 
sentimental writer, Mr. Mitchell (better known as Ik Marvel) is 
in very reduced circumstances. Some few friends have under- 
taken a subscription in his behalf. A paper has been left at our 
office and we would invite the charitably disposed to contribute 
something toward the relief of his impoverished family." ! ! ! 

But no, my dearest Mary, as God is good and watchful over 
the humblest who call Him King, labor — pleasant labor (beguiled 
by your sweet face and your sunniest of smiles) — will make for us 
a quiet and a beaming home, rich in the shade of trees, in the per- 
fume of flowers, in the song of birds, and in that grateful presence 
of the loved one, which shall crown its charms. 

I love to talk to you on such an evening as this — a snowy, win- 
try evening — cold, heavy, cheerless — such an evening as by and 
by your presence will always brighten — such an evening as shall 
witness those fire-side joys which have hung mistily and distant 
upon the horizon of my life, always — until now. Now they are so 
near that I dread lest they be unreal. 

Looking to-day over a list of advertised places for sale, I found 
hundreds, at all distances from the city, of all sizes, from $6,000 to 
30,000. I grow much into your father's opinion, that it is best to 
take all things very quietly. Do tell me very freely and fully 
anything that may occur to you in connection either with a perma- 
nent home, or our 'whereabouts' for the summer. New York is, 
I fear, going to be terribly full after the 1st of May. I hear that 
rooms are even now engaged for May and June. Never mind, the 
world is wide; and if we find no comfort here, we can seek it in 
some cozy nook of the 'Old Country,' and loiter down the park 
glades (where Carry loitered) 1 of green old England ! 

There is (as you say) confidence and hope and trust and knowl- 
edge that love and faith are mutual; and with God's favor, will be 
so, until He shall part us ! 

1 See Reveries of a Bachelor, 185-190. 
250 



AN EVENTFUL TWELVEMONTH 

I do look longingly forward to the day when in place of this soli- 
tary bachelor-room in a dim and dreary hotel, you will lighten my 
hearth and home with that cheery face, and give me such joys as 
have truly lived only in "reverie." 

This harsh March forewarns me (not unpleasantly) that you 
will find me a willing victim to any future designs you may have 
of winter campaigns towards your own sunniness of season. 

You see I run on, talking most disjointedly and unmethodically, 
just as if your own sweet self were here, and as if my arm still 
clasped you. You will pardon it all then, and believe strongly, 
and stronger than ever before, how dearly I love you, and how 
hopefully. 

(Norwich, Conn., March 15th, 1853.) — I keep my eye upon 
all the places advertised, and so soon as the weather is warmer, shall 
make a running search — not with a view to immediate purchase, 
but that I may have some data whereby to regulate our summer 
life. 

Have you read My Novel of Bulwer's, and what think you of 
the character of Helen ? and do you remember toward the close 
some such mention as this: "the life of a metropolis is essential to 
the healthful intuition of a writer, in the intellectual wants of the 
age." It may be true of passionate and dramatic novel-writing; 
but of calmer works, whether historical or descriptive, I cannot 
believe it to be true: I do not want to believe it true. Time was — 
not long since — when I craved the noise and bustle of the city to 
stimulate my energies, and to drive away from [me] a sense of 
social want. But, dear Mary, with your image rising on my future 
so pleasantly as it does, and blessing as it does daily, my vision of 
a home, distractions are needless; and I shall hope to find in your 
smile and your wish, enough to wake my energies and to gladden 
my labor, 

The road to Runnymede is, I suppose, now flowered with 
jessamines, and the grass green upon the lawn, and the sky as blue 
and soft as when we strolled under the moss-draped oaks. And 

251 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

the initials (unfinished) upon the holly- tree? Do they stand yet; 
and do you wish as truly as I for the time when they will stand 
completed, and we be as near in fact as we are now in thought ? 

(Norwich, Conn., March 17th, 1853.) — Well, is it not odd that 
here at my desk, the scene of hard and much heart-less work, I 
should be dashing off these little sheets — 'love letters' — to one who 
six months ago I saw for the first time in light muslin dress prome- 
nading upon the clean corridors of Mr. Marvin's United States 
Hotel; and. a month later wearing 'snuffy brown' dress and odious 
'fright' upon the mountains of northern New England ! 

(Norwich, Conn., March 21st, 1853.) — This life of ours is a 
strange, perplexed riddle; and when we have most reason to enjoy, 
and our horizon is brightest, Providence tempers the joy with 
thick-coming anxieties. It is a work-day world, and those plea- 
sures are greatest, after all, which spring from the consciousness of 
work accomplished and duty performed. Am I turned sermonizer ? 
Don't let me bring a shade across that cheerful face of yours, I beg. 
And not for this time only, do I beg it, but always. Do let that 
bright spot of God's sunshine glow for me to the end ! With that 
always before me, I shall grow — if not better, at least more hopeful ! 

I have not ventured thus far to arrange anything definitely, hop- 
ing to have some more decided hint of your wishes, more especially 
with reference to the European trip. I think we might pass six 
months in Europe at a cost of $3,000. This would involve a bit of 
trenching upon capital, but not to such amount as would frighten 
me. ... It might well be that an ocean trip, and a re-visiting of 
old scenes, would stir my sluggish brain into some quicker musings 
than belong to it now; and I know I should dearly love to point 
out to you (as Paul did to Carry) the scenes familiarized by my 
early and vagabond pilgrimages. If, then, your heart is aglow to 
look down on the valleys of Switzerland, and to listen to my 
rigmarole of the old events, and of the sunshine (how colder!) 

252 



AN EVENTFUL TWELVEMONTH 

which shone on me then — tell me so, and let us go, and I will take 
tickets for the Cunarder (as you prefer) of the ist June. 

(Norwich, Conn., March 28th, 1853.) — I don't know about 
Mrs. Julius Pringle's prognostic of a New York life. I fancy she 
must love that city better than either you or I. It seems to me 
now as if some very strong necessity would be required to draw me 
away from a country cottage home, lit up with your cheerful face. 
How seems it to you, dear Mary? 

When, indeed, you are cheerful no longer, and the comparative 
isolation shall have worn the smile from your face, then it shall be 
the city, or whatever else may relieve the tedium of the quiet life; 
but we will stave that off a long way. 

I feel almost as if I could fall easily into my old trick of farm- 
ing — but of this another time. 

You ask after copyright: Its fate, I think, is very uncertain — 
so uncertain that I do not allow myself to feel interested at all; 
and even in the event of its passing, I do not hope for very much 
benefit. Ah, dear Mary, you have chosen a sadly poor profession — 
Vagabonds/ as you say, by appetite and habit; and only strong 
— in feeling. However, you know I boast myself a farmer — a 
sort of first love the farm was to me; and if worst comes to worst, I 
know I could win a livelihood at old-fashioned farm work. 

I enclose ... a feeble little blossom of heliotrope from my 
cousin's plant; it means — devotion ! 

I do think, Molly, that you would love to have a run over the 
ocean, and through some of the soft glades of England. I do think, 
too, that you would pick up thereabout a great many hints which 
would go to beautify and make tasteful any future Elmgrove. 
Therefore, I shall make my arrangements in view of a summer's 
absence — unless some such opportunity (Micawber-wise) should 
turn up for house and grounds as would warrant the adjournment 
of the Europe trip. 

*S3 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

You ask what my publisher says? And do you, who forbid me 
to consult yourself, hint at my consulting him? No, then, he 
does not like my running off. He would like me to take a room in 
his store 12 ft. x 8, one desk, one. chair, one stone pitcher, six pens, 
and two reams of paper. He would advise me to keep there the 
rest of the summer, running up in the country to see you once a 
week; and in the winter, once a month. Pray, shall I follow his 
advice? If you do not hurry your reply, I shall probably accept 
his propositions. 

(Norwich, Conn., April 10th, 1853.) — One of the places at 
Newburgh has now upon it only a workingman's cottage (one story, 
three rooms), and I quite horrified Mr. Headley by saying that, 
by adding one room and bathing conveniences, I should count it, 
under a canopy of vines, very inhabitable ! Would you have been 
horrified, Molly? He thought it might be turned into a gate- 
lodge ! But, please God, dear Molly, I hope to be able always, to 
open with my own hands, all the gates to any home of ours ! 

Do I frighten you ? I told you, I think, of my visiting Mr. 
Downing's; a rare instance of what taste can accomplish upon a 
very common-place landscape. And yet Mr. Downing made the 
great mistake of building too magnificently for his means; perhaps 
his profession as architect compelled it; but the pretentious house 
compelled also a general and splendid hospitality which, at his 
death, has involved a sale of house, furniture, books, and left his 
widow — poor. Hospitality can be just as honest and heart-felt 
under a low roof as a high one; and I remember that I took the 
kindness of Mr. Irving very closely to heart when he showed me 
into a little chamber scarce twelve feet square, with one little 
diamond-paned window, and only white dimity curtains, and the 
Melrose ivy-leaves fluttering against the casement — -just as closely 
to heart as Gov. Manning's kindness in his palace of Clarendon ! 

As for my own employment — brain-wise — for the year to come, 
my publisher is more anxious than I. To write a flimsy book 

254 



AN EVENTFUL TWELVEMONTH 

(though it might produce revenue), it is hard to make up my mind. 
He (my publisher) doesn't give me a moment's peace in his count- 
ing-room; and varies his appeals most amusingly — first to my pride, 
then avarice, then fear, then vanity, etc. "Give me a book," he 
says, "before you go, and I will warrant you enough to build a 
house when you come back." The Harpers (if I go abroad) want 
a series of foreign sketches, for which they offer very large pay. 
But of all this I think very much less, dear Molly, than of you 
and of your home: that is my book now; and the whole type- world 
is typed in you. 

{Undated.) — I enclose a fragment from one of Mr. Scribner's 
letters, showing his book-thirstiness. The first part, which I do 
not send, warns me of shortening sales and revenue, unless I keep 
up the demand by some novelty. The "Work-day Sermons," or 
"Sermons for Work Days," hinted at, is a book, long had in con- 
templation, of essays written sermon-wise upon "Landscape 
Gardening," "Spending of Money," "Beauty," "Architecture," 
"Trees," "Travel," and mayhap, "Marriage!" This book, with 
the one already named in previous letter, and the "Fudge," are 
all that lie in the way of direct taking hold of the magnum opus y 
Venetian History. 

(Norwich, Conn., April 12th, 1853.) — One thing we will do, 
dearest Molly, whether our home be in one place or another; in 
one state or other; and whether we cross one sheet of water or 
another sheet of water; and whether we stroll in Notre Dame or in 
Calvary Church: we will look at life brightly and broadly, and be 
forgiving of what failings or shortcomings we find — whether in 
places, in pence, or in people; we will not narrow our thoughts to 
one bit of the world, or think that all is good in one place, or all 
bad in another; and we will live hopefully and earnestly, counting 
it all God's world, and we — His creatures, to battle it away on the 
fighting field where He has put us, with stout hands and hearts — • 
taking what comfort we can from the world and from each other; 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

and living so as not greatly to fear the time (save for the separa- 
tion) which will change the scene, and transfer us to that Great 
Future which lies the other side of graves. Pray pardon my 
sermonizing. 

(Norwich? April 27th (or 28th), 1853.) — A very kind letter 
from Mr. Irving, of recent date, speaks in a way (of you) that I 
shall not start your vanity by telling. He speaks, too, of your 
mother's seeming more like an elder sister, than a mother. 

Life is not very long, you know, at the longest, and the griefs 
are thick upon it. But it may be made large with large and 
earnest purposes; and it may be made happy by goodness of in- 
tent and action. 

Molly, let us look the sunshine in the face ! I am not given to 
that way of looking; rather prone am I, from the misfortunes of my 
boyhood, which broke a large family into shattered and feeble 
fragments, and devastated a loved hearth by death on death, to 
somber musings; but, Molly, let me now look hopefully through 
your eyes; and through your heart grow back into that old fra- 
grance of a home which has lingered (only lingered) around me 
always, like the faint perfume which stays where flowers have 
been! 

When, late in April a decision to visit Europe had been 
reached, Donald determined to seek a consular post, and on 
his way to Charleston visited Washington to make applica- 
tion in person. It was his good fortune while there to meet 
Nathaniel Hawthorne, who, as classmate and warm friend 
of the new President, Franklin Pierce, made the way for the 
applicant "easy and flowery." 1 This new experience of 
Washington life did not quicken in him any political aspira- 
tions; on the contrary, it seems to have deepened his antip- 

1 See Mr. Mitchell's reminiscences in American Lands and Letters, 2.151-152. 

256 



AN EVENTFUL TWELVEMONTH 

athies, and to have turned him definitely from all thoughts 
of active participation in public affairs. From his Washing- 
ton letters to Miss Pringle, I have made a few extracts: 

(dpril 30th and May 1st, 1853.) — Again, my dearest Molly, I 
find myself in my little chamber, pen in hand, very sure that I 
shan't [displease] you by relieving my solitary hours by writing 
even such poor scrawl as my pen makes. 

The truth is, I have stolen away to my room to avoid a noisy 
supper, to which I was invited, given by the fastest of Young 
Americas; to wit, the editor of the Democratic Review, the candi- 
date for the Constantinople Ministry, the Col. May of Mexican 
memory, and also (though not of the same rabid politics) Mr. 
Hawthorne. I pity him ! He told me to-day that some men 
possessed a kind of magnetic influence over him which he could not 
resist, however it might lead him. . . . 

They will be drinking champagne and singing songs — perhaps 
even too far gone for that — when I will be dreaming pleasantly of 
a certain cottage adorned by a certain presence ! 

Oh, this horrible Washington — haunt of everything worst; 
and yet with so much that is attractive, and keeping within its 
bounds such capacity for good and for evil ! 

But I won't sermonize till to-morrow. No, Molly, I won't 
travel Sunday, but shall certainly set off either on Monday or on 
Tuesday evening. I know you wouldn't have me travel on Sunday 
even home-ward. 

Sunday morning. ... I have been wandering about the city 
for two hours this morning, listening to the southern singing birds, 
and waiting for the church doors to open; even now three-quarters 
of an hour remain to the commencement of service. I shall guard 
myself with your Prayer Book against the Puseyite tendencies of 
Mr. . 

It is a sad place, this Washington: compassing within its borders 
more hard drinking, more swearing, more vulgarity, more presump- 

257 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

tion, more impudence, than any place I ever fell upon in the world. 
Gen. Cushing, to whom I was presented by Mr. Hawthorne yes- 
terday, is a very good-looking, prompt, gentlemanly man; and 
spoke to Mr. Hawthorne of my appointment to the Mediterranean 
as certain if I urged it. 

I find that the Consulate at Venice is worth nothing to speak 
of; that at Leghorn is worth from $900 to 1,500 a year: the place it- 
self is not agreeable, nor are there libraries nearer than Pisa. The 
Genoese Consulate offers a pleasant city to reside [in], and is worth 
from 1,000 to $1,600 a year (d ce quon dit). 

My present determination is not to thrust myself among the 
office-hungry by seeming to linger here for appointment. I shall 
simply convey to Mr. Cushing a knowledge of my literary intent — 
of my object in asking a place — of my unwillingness to interfere 
with any political preferment; but simply shall suggest that, as a lit- 
erary man, if he sees any place available that may further my 
designs without prejudice to any political friends of the adminis- 
tration, to give me information. This course will leave any possi- 
ble appointment subject for south-parlor consideration, and will 
not bind Molly to my expatriation d'avance. . . . 

1 have just returned from hearing Mr. : sad specimen 



of a clergyman ! Yet they tell me he is very much admired. He 
should have been tragic pantomimist upon the French stage, and 
then he would have reached (possibly) mediocrity ! 

I know this is hard talking of a preacher; but the pulpit is the 
one place where affectation is to me not only unpardonable, but 
absurd, wicked, outrageous, and intolerable; and when I see a man 
under the sacred duties of such a calling, and with voluntary 
assumption of that close relation to the Deity, exhibiting the 
graces — not of Christ — but of himself, my contempt lacks words 
to measure it. 

I like modesty in every station; but above all I like it where to 
be modest is not so much a virtue as a decency. The church altar 
seems to me just that place. . . . 

258 



AN EVENTFUL TWELVEMONTH 

This is perhaps the last letter I shall write you in years ! How 
strange ! God grant that we have need of few letters; but that we 
may read each other's lives and wishes so fully and fairly — each in 
each — that no machinery of letters will be wanted ! 

And now, my bachelor letters to you are done, and my bachelor 
life (in effect) is done, too. Henceforward, our responsibility to 
the world and the dread Future, blends in one. Let us wear it 
hopefully, joyously (if it may be), and always trustful of better 
things to come ! 

May 2d, 1853. only a word, for the mail is near closing. 

I shall leave to-morrow at 9 p. m., whether-or-no. I only stay 
out of courtesy to the numerous friends I have met here. Gov. 
Marcy says to me only an hour ago, "You are the only man I have 
asked to stay another day in Washington." Mrs. Marcy (though 
I only met her to-day) expressed an interest in you, and a wish to 
see you. What will you say to a return this way? 

~Dorit fear my alliance to politics, or things political. I am 
more and more disgusted with everything of the sort. 

I saw the President to-day on a private interview in com- 
pany with Mr. Hawthorne. He is a very pleasant man — well- 
intentioned, I think, and thoroughly earnest. 

On the 24th of May Donald's commission as consul of 
the United States of America for the port of Venice and 
the Adriatic ports of the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom was 
issued. One week later, he and Miss Pringle were married 
in the King Street home, Charleston. The public took more 
than a passing interest in the marriage of the famous bache- 
lor-dreamer, and the blessings of thousands followed the two 
young people. "Your honeymoon," wrote George Bancroft 
prophetically, "can have no last quarter." After a few days 
of travel and a visit with Mary Goddard in Norwich, they 
sailed for Liverpool on the Arctic, June 25th, 1853. 



259 



HOME FIRES ON EUROPEAN HEARTHS 

Our little household machinery works capitally; and our fourth- 
floor parlor, with its growing accumulation of odd bits of old oak, 
odd vases and pictures, and lighted up now by a cheery October 
flame in the chimney, is looking quite home-like. — D. G. M. to 
William B. Pringle, from Paris, October 30th, 1854. 

There can be little doubt that Donald's chief reason for 
going to Europe was to revisit in company with his bride the 
scenes of his former travel. He wanted to see once more 
the beauties of the countryside, and with his eyes upon them 
to make note of such features as later on he might adapt to 
home-making of his own. To be sure, he half convinced 
himself that a history of Venice was his objective, and he 
certainly hoped that such a journey might, as he said, "stir 
his sluggish brain into some quicker musings"; but the 
itinerary followed and the course of events reveal the truth. 
He went up and down the avenues of Great Britain and the 
Continent with sketch-book in hand. No beautiful design 
of gateway, or porch, or chimney, or gable, or window, or 
fireplace escaped his attention. The little book which he 
carried lies now before me. Its daintily colored sketches 
speak as eloquently as words of the hearty devotion that went 
into their making; and it is easy to see that they are the 
sources of inspiration upon which he later drew. Good, 
honest investigation of Venetian history he indeed made; 
but throughout the months of travel and study, the image of 

260 



HOME FIRES ON EUROPEAN HEARTHS 

that home to which he had so long looked forward, kept 
rising before his fancy. 

The Arctic reached Liverpool on the 6th of July. For 
three months thereafter the young people travelled leisurely, 
following for the most part the trails which Donald knew so 
well. In October they reached Venice, where Mr. Mitchell 
settled down to the discharge of the slender consular busi- 
ness and to historical studies. A considerable portion of his 
correspondence during this period remains, chiefly letters to 
Mary Goddard. I have made such extracts as enable us to 
follow the fortunes of the travellers during the months of 
their European residence: 

To Mary Goddard. 

(Geneva, September 9th, 1853.) — Your kind, but too short favor 
reached me here only a day or two ago, being, with the exception 
of one from Dr. Barker, the only friendly letter I have received 
since my departure. . . . Mary is very well, indeed, and has 
made one or two of the high mountain passes with me on mule and 
foot. ... I need not tell you that our trip has been a pleasant 
one. Indeed, nothing has occurred in any way to mar it, save the 
rush and crowd of travel, which has'bbliged us very often to take 
inferior quarters, and of course to submit to imposition. . . . The 
weather has been generally fine, but within a few days has kept us 
housed. 

Our trip was first through North Wales, thence to London; 
thence to Edinburgh by Derbyshire, the Lake Counties, etc., to 
Loch Lomond, Stirling, York, London again, the Isle of Wight, 
Calais, Brussels, Aix la Chapelle, Cologne, Mayence, Baden, Basle, 
Zurich, Lucerne, Interlaken, Berne, Vevay, Geneva. Only Cha- 
mouni remains of Switzerland; and it is even doubtful if I do not 
run away without seeing that, reserving it, however, for some 
future time. 

261 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

I have grown sadly lazy in respect of writing, so that even a 
letter drags heavily; but I hope to make a reform when I am once 
settled quietly in my quarters at Venice. 

The sight of English farms has quickened all my old tastes, and 
I want when I go back, room and verge enough to work out some- 
thing in that way. 

(Venice, October 22d, 1853.) — I wrote you, I can't say how 
many weeks since; but certainly some time since the receipt of 
your last; so that whereas I have heard from you but a single time, 
this is at least my third writing to you. This is doing a good deal 
for a newly-married man, and above all for one so engrossed and 
perplexed as I have been since my arrival here, with looking out 
for rooms, and servants, and all the et ceteras of housekeeping; for 
to almost literal housekeeping are we reduced. First and fore- 
most, the Consulate is worth nothing in any way; neither in money, 
nor, in view of the present feeling of the Austrian authorities to- 
ward America, is it worth anything for its position. Of course, 
I shall only stay so long as I am obliged to stay to finish what 
reading I must do here: this I hope to do by April or May, when I 
shall go either to Florence or to Paris; in either of those places I 
can live much cheaper and better than here. 

We have now very comfortable quarters and good sized rooms, 
besides a little kitchen and two servant's rooms, which we hire with 
furniture, linen, crockery, etc., and also use of a garden abutting 
upon the Grand Canal. We keep a gondolier who acts also as 
servant, waiter, and almost everything else. A cook we are now 
on the outlook for, but are at present provided from the kitchen 
of our host. 

I am thoroughly disappointed in the cost of living here, and in 
the agreeableness of it, though perhaps this last is not so much to 
be regretted, as it will add to my disposition to keep at my books 
and my work. I feel as if I had wasted two good years which I 
must repair as soon and as well as I can. . . . 

262 



HOME FIRES ON EUROPEAN HEARTHS 

Mary, as you may well suppose, is delighted with the new 
things she sees; and is always the same as when you saw her — mak- 
ing friends of everybody, and beguiling me, I daresay, into very 
much more of idleness than is either proper or becoming. 

(Venice, November ? 1853.) — We are still here living very cozily 
in cozy quarters, Mary playing the housewife better even than I 
could have fancied. But we are both fairly out of patience with 
the cheating and lying habit of everybody with whom we are 
brought in contact; and were we not just now trammelled by rooms 
which we cannot rid ourselves of, we should leave instanter for 
either Florence or Paris. I do assure you that much as I have 
seen of foreign knavery, the Venetians have inspired in me a more 
thorough contempt than I could have believed possible. 

We shall leave here, I think, in March or April; but whether for 
Florence or Paris is still undecided. I do not count on being home 
much before the summer of 1855. Still, if possible, shall make my 
return earlier. I am pushing on somewhat in Venice (the history), 
but it is a long and a dull task. I want very much to get a little box 
of my own, where I can smoke and work by my own fire. 

We are all anxiously waiting every day's news here from the 
war-country. There are sad and very decided fears that the 
trouble may spread over Europe. If so, I may run away, even 
with Venice incomplete. 

The winter here is very severe; and as I write, heavy snow is 
lying on all the roofs, and on the borders of the canals. 

(Venice, November 18th, 1853.) — You would be amused and 
surprised to find how many of the old Norwich luxuries Mary has 
revived for me here; such as a true dish of baked beans, and most 
delicious quince marmalade — prepared, this last, by her own hands. 
Indeed, I did not know what a provider I had found in a wife until I 
had entered upon this little trial of housekeeping. Without her, I 
believe I should have gone crazy here; as every Italian is a knave, 

263 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

there is no society, the chimneys smoke (though we hope that may 
be cured *)> and the Consulate, instead of being an advantage, is 
rather the contrary. The gross fees are about $150 a year. I have 
already given notice of my intention to resign, and shall probably 
in the spring go either to Florence or to Paris. All the great li- 
braries will be equally serviceable to me, and there is nothing 
accessible here which may not be found in Paris or in Florence. 

I am budging very, very slowly with my history, partly through 
the hanging on of the last year's laziness, and partly from the ex- 
ample of lazy habit in the people around me. 

My old farming likings revive more and more in this city of 
waters. Read Flagg's book and let me know how you like it. 
I had before heard of Motley's endeavor, but I do not think he will 
make a popular book. An Englishman has also been engaged here 
for many years on studies connected with Venice — with a view to 
ultimate publication, I suppose. It will be my endeavor, there- 
fore, to make my history more practical, so to speak, than erudite. 
I want to finish it before returning, so as to turn my hand to some- 
thing else. 

Although Mr. Mitchell was reappointed to the Venice 
consulate on the 28th of February 1854, his letter of resig- 
nation had already gone forward to Washington on the 14th. 
The manner in which the consular service was conducted had 
grown utterly distasteful to him, and in resigning he did not 
hesitate to speak plainly in regard to what he strongly felt 
were needed reforms. In accepting the resignation (March 
1 8th), Mr. Marcy, the secretary of state, thanked him for 
"the important suggestions in reference to the Consular 
system of the United States.'' It is worth while to say that 
within a few years material changes in the system were made 
in line with the suggestions put forward by Mr. Mitchell. 

1 There is humorous record of the "curing" in Bound Together, 224-228. 

264 



HOME FIRES ON EUROPEAN HEARTHS 

In after years, Mr. Mitchell greatly enjoyed making humor- 
ous reference to his consular experiences. "Julius Caesar 
was a consul," he wrote, "and the first Bonaparte; and so 
was I. . . . For myself, consular recollections are not, I 
regret to say, pleasant. I do not write * Ex-United States 
Consul* after my name. I doubt if I ever shall. ... I 
have no objection to serve my country; I have sometimes 
thought of enlisting in the dragoons. I am told they have 
comfortable rations, and two suits of clothes in a year. But 
I pray Heaven that I may never again be deluded into the 
acceptance of a small consulate on the Mediterranean." l 

Upon their removal to Paris late in February, Mr. and 
Mrs. Mitchell settled down to permanent home life in a cozy 
little fourth-floor apartment at 8 Rue du Luxembourg, 
where they remained until mid-April 1855. Here they saw 
much of home friends and relatives. Henry Huntington, 
who had recently established his bachelor home in the Rue 
de la Bruyere, was within reach. Mr. Mitchell's brother 
Louis, and Mrs. Mitchell's sister Susan and Uncle Robert 
Pringle, brought a comradeship of kin that prevented home- 
sickness. A part of Donald's first Paris letter to Mary 
Goddard follows: 

(8 Rue du Luxembourg, April 9th, 1854.) — Your letter of 
February reached us here only a few days ago, having been for- 
warded from Venice. . . . On leaving Venice I had half a mind to 
establish myself at Florence until my history was done; but on 
hearing bad accounts of the summer heats, and finding no very 
enjoyable rooms, we decided to come on to Paris, where we shall 
remain certainly until autumn, and very probably until a year 
from this time. We are pleasantly situated, not far from the garden 
of the Tuileries; and have a salle a manger ; parlor, bed-room, work- 

1 "Account of a Consulate," in Seven Stories, 75-127. 
265 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

room for me, and kitchen with beds for the servants — cook and 
maid. Of course, we are at housekeeping, as we were at Venice. 
Expenses are very much higher, but opportunities for my writing 
are better than there. 

... I have become more persuaded that I shall take a place 
where I can have land about me, when I get back. Indeed, I am 
almost inclined to think of farming in earnest, or of giving up writ- 
ing altogether. Still, I am looking out for books, and mean to 
have a good library about me wherever I may be, already having 
increased my stock some two or three hundred volumes. 

The history drags on very slowly — partly by reason of my eyes, 
which I harmed by late reading of old Italian type in Venice, and 
have been obliged here to consult a physician, and shorten my 
reading very much. In other respects, I am quite well. 

On the 5 th of June 1854, their first child, a daughter, was 
born. The happy father hastened to inform Mary Goddard 
of the event. "The child is large, with brown hair, and dark 
blue eyes," he wrote on the following day. "The nurse says 
it is a 'noble child.' Of course it is !" 

As the summer of 1854 approached its end, Mrs. Mitch- 
ell's parents, eager for a sight of their daughter after her 
long absence, urgently advised a turning homeward in the 
autumn. A part of Donald's reply to the father, Wm. B. 
Pringle, sets forth the reasons which caused them to prolong 
their stay: 

{October 30th, 1854.) — You know that the work I am upon in- 
volves a sort of attention which is no way reconcilable with change ; 
and with books and opportunities about me, it would seem exceed- 
ingly injudicious to fling them all away after only a single summer's 
acquaintance. I regret very much a necessity which compels 
Mary's longer absence from home; but a winter at longest is not 
very long; the baby will be stronger for the voyage; we shall meet 

266 



HOME FIRES ON EUROPEAN HEARTHS 

(God willing) spring warmth on the Atlantic coast; and at the latest 
shall hope to reach Charleston by the first of May. Mary will 
continue her visit there as long as Mrs. P[ringle] may think pru- 
dent, while I am on the search for some habitable quarter at the 
North. I still think of a country life within arm's length of the 
town, where we may find quiet, good air, and such surroundings of 
trees, flowers, and shade as may perhaps tempt some of your roving 
family to pay us a summer visit. 

I have little hope of finishing the historic work I am upon while 
here; but hope to get through the ugliest part of the task, in collec- 
tion of notes and comparison of authorities: if I complete the whole 
within a year thereafter, I shall be quite satisfied. Some lesser 
literary ventures which will work themselves out in the interval, 
without interrupting my chief occupation, will serve at least to 
keep up my acquaintanceship with my clientele. 

And then follows a paragraph which helps us to remember 
that the shadows of the war in the Crimea fell athwart the 
European residence of the Mitchells: 

All the outside world is busy again with thought of Sebastapol. 
The Emperor even is said to be in a gloomy state of anxiety, and 
what with the coming winter and the heavy losses in the camps, the 
prospects of the Allies are less bright than they have been any time 
in the season. Still, however, Paris is wearing a gay look; theatres 
are full; all the public works are going forward with wonderful 
rapidity. 

Only one other letter of this period remains. "We are 
getting on here in a very domestic way, going out very little, 
and I hard at work upon what proves very slow work — my 
history," he wrote to Mrs. Goddard (December 14th, 1854). 
"Where we shall go [upon returning to America] as yet is 
very uncertain. I dread to think of the perplexity of choos- 

267 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

ing, and the annoyance of a long search. Two things I am 
determined to have — land, and an easy way of getting to 
New York. We are picking up odds and ends of furniture, 
as we find them cheap, and shall bring over enough perhaps 
for a couple of rooms; also quite a budget of books. ... If 
worst should come to worst, and we should be obliged to 
seek a quiet boarding place for next summer, do you think 
there could any arrangement be made with the Rudds ? 
Don't speak of this to anyone. I hardly know, indeed, why 
I suggest it, all my plans being yet so unsettled. In view of 
work with the publisher, it may be necessary to swelter out 
some part of the summer with the New Yorkers. One thing 
is certain — I shall have any amount of hard work to do for 
these two years to come; and my idling (if I ever have it 
again) must come afterward." 

May 1855 saw parents and child safe in America. The 
European journey had enlarged and enriched the minds of 
Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell; it had given them a new sense of 
comradeship, a common store of knowledge and of memories, 
and a spirit of cosmopolitanism which they handed on to 
their children. For Mr. Mitchell it was not entirely a time 
of ease. During the absence abroad he completed The 
Fudge Papers for Knickerbocker, and contributed regularly 
to Harper's. The studies in Venetian history, entered upon 
with eagerness at the outset, he had continued doggedly and 
persistently as the magnitude of the task became clear to 
him. Long before he left Paris he had come to a realization 
that he had made only a small beginning upon Venice; that 
he had years of work ahead of him before he could complete 
the story in any satisfactory way. Beyond all else, however, 
thoughts of a home were occupying his mind. In comparison 
with this vision of home all else was of little consequence to 

268 



HOME FIRES ON EUROPEAN HEARTHS 

him. As Europe receded into the shadowy distance, and 
the shores of America once more came into view, he felt that 
now, indeed, through whatever difficulties and perplexities, 
there would come realization of that dream of home which 
had floated so often and so long before his fancy; that now, 
in truth, he was "drifting, like a sea-bound river — home- 
ward." 



269 



THE EDGEWOOD YEARS 



XI 
A HOME AT LAST 

It was in June 18(55] tnat > weary of a somewhat long and vaga- 
bond homelessness, during which I had tossed some half a dozen 
times across the Atlantic — partly from health-seeking, in part out 
of pure vagrancy, and partly {me taedet meminisse) upon official 
errand — I determined to seek the quiet of a homestead. — My Farm 
of Edgewood, 3. 

Immediately upon reaching America, Mrs. Mitchell went 
to her South Carolina home with the little daughter, and Mr. 
Mitchell turned eagerly to home hunting. He was deter- 
mined that wife and child should rejoin him under a roof- 
tree of his own. "There were tender memories of old farm 
days in my mind; and these were kindled to a fresh exuber- 
ance and lustiness by the recent hospitalities of a green Eng- 
lish home, with its banks of laurestina, its broad-leaved 
rhododendrons, and its careless wealth of primroses," wrote 
Mr. Mitchell in retrospect. 1 "Of course the decision was 
for the country; and I had no sooner scented the land, after 
the always dismal sail across the fog-banks of George's shoal, 
than I drew up an advertisement for the morning papers, 
running, so nearly as I can recall it, thus: 'Wanted — A farm, 
of not less than one hundred acres, and within three hours of 
the city. It must have a running stream, a southern or 
eastern slope, not less than twenty acres in wood, and a 



water view. ,,: 



My Farm of Edgewood, 3-4. 
273 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

Within a very few days he was busy investigating replies 
to this advertisement. The claims of Norwich and Fair- 
field, Connecticut, he had already considered with care. 
Washington Irving advised the North River region. Staten 
Island, Tarry town, and White Plains were visited in turn. 
It was not, however, until he went to New Haven, Connecti- 
cut, whither college memories drew him, that he found a 
farm which attracted strongly. 

"I reached here late last evening," he wrote Mrs. Mitchell 
from the Tontine Hotel, New Haven, May 31st, 1855, "and 
have spent the day in looking about among the neighboring 
farms. I entered my name on the books as 'Mr. Mitchell, 
New York'; but some lounger, it appears, recognized me, and 
I found myself heralded this morning in the paper as 'Don- 
ald Mitchell, the distinguished Ik Marvel, &c, &c.' Of 
course, I have had, therefore to see some people I didn't want 
to see; but, per contra, have gained a very friendly call from 
Mr. [Colin] Ingersoll, Member of Congress from this district, 
who is to call again to-morrow morning to drive me out place- 
hunting." He then told of several farms already visited. 
The following morning, immediately after his return to the 
Tontine, he added this note to the letter previously quoted: 
"I have just returned with Mr. I. and his wife from visiting 
a very fine farm of 200 acres overlooking all New Haven and 
its valley, with good old-fashioned house, tenant house, 
orcharding, etc., thirty to forty acres of woodland. Price 
asked, #16,000. It is the best and cheapest for its goodness 
I have yet seen. It is distant two miles from New Haven, 
and New Haven is, you know, four hours from New York. 
I wish you could see it !" 

On the afternoon of June 2d, in a note written to Mary 
Goddard from New York City after another day of investi- 

274 



A HOME AT LAST 

gation, he said: "Opinion now inclines to a 200 acre farm 
near New Haven, two miles off, under West Rock, having a 
magnificent view, tolerable house, good tenant house, good 
land, thousands of fruit, and fine healthy air, with a stout 
hill to keep it warm." 

The search was all but ended. In My Farm of Edgewood 
Mr. Mitchell has told at length of his amusing experiences in 
connection with his home-hunting. He has told also of the 
finding: 

One after another the hopes I had built . . . failed me. June 
was bursting every day into fuller and more tempting leafiness. 
The stifling corridors of city hotels, the mouldy smell of country 
taverns, the dependence upon testy Jehus, who plundered and 
piloted me through all manner of out-of-the-way places, became 
fatiguing beyond measure. 

And it was precisely at this stage of my inquiry, that I happened 
accidentally to be passing a day at the Tontine Inn. . . . The 
old drowsy quietude of the place which I had known in other days, 
still lingered upon the broad green. . . . The College still seemed 
dreaming out its classic beatitudes, and the staring rectangularity 
of its enclosures and buildings and paths appeared to me only a 
proper expression of its old geometric and educational tradi- 
tions. . . . 

A friend called upon me shortly after my arrival, and learning 
the errand upon which I had been scouring no inconsiderable tract 
of country, proposed to me to linger a day more, and take a drive 
about the suburbs. I willingly complied with his invitation. . . . 

It seems but yesterday that I drove from among the tasteful 
houses of the town, which since my boy time had crept far out upon 
the margin of the plain. It seems to me that I can recall the note 
of an oriole, that sang gushingly from the limbs of an over-reaching 
elm as we passed. I know I remember the stately broad road we 
took, and its smooth, firm macadam. I have a fancy that I com- 

275 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

pared it in my own mind, and not unfavorably, with the metal of 
a road which I had driven over only two months before in the 
environs of Liverpool. I remember a somewhat stately country 
house that we passed, whose architecture dissolved a*iy illusions I 
might have been under in regard to my whereabouts. I remember 
turning slightly, perhaps to the right, and threading the ways of a 
neat little manufacturing village — catching views of waterfalls, of 
tall chimneys, of open pasture grounds; and remember bridges, 
and other bridges, and how the village straggled on with its neat 
white palings, and whiter houses, with honeysuckles at the doors; 
and how we skirted a pond where the pads of lilies lay all idly afloat; 
and how a great hulk of rock loomed up suddenly near a thousand 
feet, with dwarfed cedars and oaks tufting its crevices — tufting 
its top, and how we drove almost beneath it, so that I seemed to be 
in Meyringen again, and to hear the dash of the foaming Reichen- 
bach; and how we ascended again, drifting through another limb 
of the village, where the little churches stood; and how we sped on 
past neat white houses — rising gently — skirted by hedgerows of 
tangled cedars, and presently stopped before a grayish-white farm- 
house, where the air was all aflow with the perfume of great purple 
spikes of lilacs. And thence, though we had risen so little I had 
scarce noticed a hill, we saw all the spires of the city we had left, 
two miles away as a bird flies, and they seemed to stand cushioned 
on a broad bower of leaves; and to the right of them, where they 
straggled and faded, there came to the eye a white burst of water 
which was an arm of the sea; beyond the harbor and town was a 
purple hazy range of hills — in the foreground a little declivity, and 
then a wide plateau of level land, green and lusty, with all the 
wealth of June sunshine. I had excuse to be fastidious in the 
matter of landscape, for within three months I had driven on Rich- 
mond hill, and had luxuriated in the valley scene from the cote of 
St. Cloud. But neither one nor the other forbade my open and out- 
spoken admiration of the view before me. 

I have a recollection of making my way through the hedging 

276 



A HOME AT LAST 

lilacs, and ringing with nervous haste at the door-bell; and as I 
turned, the view from the step seemed to me even wider and more 
enchanting than from the carriage. I have a fancy that a middle- 
aged man, with iron-gray whiskers, answered my summons in his 
shirt sleeves, and proposed joining me directly under some trees 
which stood a little way to the north. I recollect dimly a little 
country coquetry of his, about unwillingness to sell, or to name a 
price; and yet how he kindly pointed out to me the farmlands, 
which lay below upon the flat, and the valley where his cows were 
feeding just southward, and how the hills rolled up grandly west- 
ward, and were hemmed in to the north by a heavy belt of timber. 

I think we are all hypocrites at a bargain. I suspect I threw 
out casual objections to the house, and the distance, and the 
roughness; and yet have an uneasy recollection of thanking my 
friend for having brought to my notice the most charming spot I 
had yet seen, and one which met my wish in nearly every particular. 

It seems to me that the ride to town must have been very short, 
and my dinner a hasty one: I know I have a clear recollection of 
wandering over those hills, and that plateau of farm-land, afoot, 
that very afternoon. I remember tramping through the wood, and 
testing the turf. ... I can recall distinctly the aspect of house, 
and hills, as they came into view on my second drive from the 
town; how a great stretch of forest, which lay in common, flanked 
the whole, so that the farm could be best and most intelligently 
described as — lying on the edge of the wood. And it seemed to me, 
that if it should be mine, it should wear the name of Edge- 
wood. 

It is the name it bears now. I will not detail the means by 
which the coyness of my iron-gray-haired friend was won over to 
a sale; it is enough to tell that within six weeks from the day on 
which I had first sighted the view, and brushed through the lilac 
hedge at the door, the place, from having been the home of another, 
had become a home of mine; and a new stock of lares was blooming 
in the atrium. 

277 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

In the disposition of the landscape, and in the breadth of the 
land, there was all, and more than, I had desired. There was an 
eastern slope where the orchard lay, which took the first burst of 
the morning, and the first warmth of spring; there was another 
valley slope southward from the door, which took the warmth of 
the morning, and which keeps the sun till night. There was a wood, 
in which now the little ones gather anemones in spring, and in 
autumn, heaping baskets of nuts. There was a strip of sea in 
sight, on which I can trace the white sails, as they come and go, 
without leaving my library chair; and each night I see the flame of 
a lighthouse kindled, and its reflection dimpled on the water. If 
the brook is out of sight, beyond the hills, it has its representative 
in the fountain that is gurgling and plashing at my door. 

And it is in full sight of that sea where even now the smoky 
banner of a steamer trails along the sky, and in the hearing of the 
dash of that very fountain, and with the fragrance of those lilacs 
around me, that I close this initial chapter of my book, and lay 
down my pen. 

In such strain could Mr. Mitchell write of Edgewood 
eight years after its purchase. 1 Nor did he ever live to feel 
that his first impressions were wrong, or to regret his choice. 
In that June of 1855, with the sure instinct of a homing bird, 
he found the quiet retreat which was to be his for more than 
fifty-three years. His days of wandering were at an end. 
Henceforward the story of his life is bound up with the story 
of the crops, and flowers, and birds, and trees, and books of 
Edgewood. 

1 In My Farm of Edgewood t 37-45. 



278 



XII 

OUTDOOR WORK 

I do not think I ever met with a man who loves fields and flowers 
and trees as I love them; who can watch as I do their development 
of bud, blossom, and leaf, and their glorious decay with all its 
encarmined and purple dyes. — D. G. M. in random note. 

The greatest charm of a country life seems to me to spring from 
that familiarity with the land and its capabilities, which can come 
only from minute personal observation, or the successive develop- 
ment of one's own methods of culture. — My Farm of Edgewood, 74. 

" I would not counsel any man to think of a home in the 
country, whose heart does not leap when he sees the first 
grass-tips lifting in the city court-yards, and the boughs of 
the Forsythia adrip with their golden censers. " These are 
Mr. Mitchell's own words of wisdom to such as may be con- 
templating country life. They are a clear expression of that 
passion for country things which formed the foundation of 
his character. Long ere this it must have become clear to 
every reader that by inheritance, temperament, training, 
Mr. Mitchell was destined for country life. It must have 
become clear that he was influenced in his decision by no 
whim, by no chance vagary. He had never forgotten the 
attractions of the Salem farming days. Since those days he 
had seen the rural beauties of Europe, had observed much 
of agricultural method, and had continued his readings in 
the literature of farming and landscape-gardening. He now 
wished to give agriculture a full and fair trial. "I may say," 

279 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

he wrote, "that I felt a somewhat enthusiastic curiosity to 
know, and to determine by actual experiment, if farm lands 
were simply a cost and an annoyance to any one who would 
not wholly forswear books, enter the mud trenches valor- 
ously, and take the pig by the ears, with his own hands." * 

A passage in Out-of-Town Places 2 illuminates another side 
of Mr. Mitchell's character. It is the one in which he ad- 
vises those who are thoroughly in earnest about a country 
home to make it themselves. "Xenophon," he wrote, as he 
slipped easily into his trick of classic allusion, "Xenophon, 
who lived in a time when Greeks were Greeks, advised people 
in search of a country place to buy of a slatternly and careless 
farmer, since in that event they might be sure of making 
their labor and care work the largest results. Cato, on the 
other hand, who represented a more effeminate and scheming 
race, advised the purchase of a country home from a good 
farmer and judicious house-builder, so that the buyer might 
be sure of nice culture and equipments — possibly at a bar- 
gain. It illustrates, I think, rather finely, an essential differ- 
ence between the two races and ages: the Greek, earnest to 
make his own brain tell, and the Latin, eager to make as much 
as he could out of the brains of other people." And Mr. 
Mitchell added: "I must say that I like the Greek view best." 

In this Greek spirit Mr. Mitchell worked. He appre- 
ciated the value of sharp endeavor. "We find our highest 
pleasure in conquest of difficulties " is a sentiment voiced in 
one of his rural studies. 3 He loved to experience the joy 
that comes in seeing the thoughts of the brain take shape 
under the labor of the hands. At no time was he a lover of 
dead perfection. "One meets from time to time with a gen- 

1 My Farm of Edgezvood, 8. 2 See pp. 122-123. 

1 Out-of-Tozvn Places, 128. 

28o 



OUTDOOR WORK 

tleman from the city, smitten with a sudden rural fancy, 
who is in eager search for a place 'made to his hand/ with the 
walks all laid down, the entrance-ways established, the dwarf 
trees regularly planted, the conservatory a-steam, and the 
crocheted turrets fretting the sky-line of the suburban villa," 
he wrote in Out-of-Town Places. x "He may take a pride in 
his cheap bargain; he may regale himself with the fruits, and 
enjoy the vistas of his arbor; but he has none of that exqui- 
sitely-wrought satisfaction which belongs to the man who has 
planted his own trees, who has laid down his own walks, 
and who has seen, year after year, successive features of 
beauty in shrub, or flower, or pathway, mature under his 
ministering hand, and lend their attractions to the cumu- 
lating charms of his home." It was of such exquisitely 
wrought satisfaction that he was in search when he purchased 
Edgewood and undertook to shape it to his purposes. 

It should never be forgotten that the Master of Edge- 
wood was not a mere book-farmer. Competent helpers, of 
course, he intended to have beside him; his was always to be 
the directing mind. He entered upon his work with definite 
notions, determined to work with his own hands, and like- 
wise determined that the venture should be self-sustaining — 
even profitable. He believed that "agricultural successes 
which are the result of simple, lavish expenditure, without 
reference to agricultural returns, are but empty triumphs." 
He was endeavoring to work out a method of culture that 
would commend itself to the average farmer, a method that 
would make for the advancement of agriculture; and to this 
end, he believed that "no success in any method of culture 
is thoroughly sound and praiseworthy, except it be imitable, 
to the extent of his means, by the smallest farmer." 2 I 

1 See pp. 1 21-122. 2 My Farm of Edgewood, 64-65. 

28l 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

have been able to secure a letter written by Mr. Mitchell to 
Mr. James B. Olcott, who for a time was tenant-farmer at 
Edgewood. The letter, which bears date of February 29th, 
i860, throws light upon Mr. Mitchell's methods and pur- 
poses: 

I am not rich enough [he wrote] to make a plaything of the 
farm, but am really dependent upon its returns and some little 
which I do literary-wise. For this reason I want it pushed to its 
utmost capacity, and a man at the helm who will feel an interest, 
and extend its sales and productions. Of course, I want mean- 
time to give an example of neatness, and order, and thrift, and 
taste . . . and I want the workers to live and to do well. ... I 
want you to feel very much as if the whole establishment was 
under your charge (I mean including my own garden, etc., at the 
upper house), so that whenever you see something going wrong, 
you may right it. . . . You may find me a little "notional" (as 
the country people say) in matters of taste, and maybe petulant 
at times, but I think not generally unreasonable. If a bit of work 
does not please me, I sometimes do it over — not to mortify one 
who has done it before; but because an eye-sore is always grievous 
to me, and I try forthwith to cure it. 

Upon settling at Edgewood it was Mr. Mitchell's first 
care to effect a readjustment, and to make the general fea- 
tures of the farm conform to the notions he had in mind. 
The "Taking Reins in Hand" chapter of My Farm of Edge - 
wood summarizes this early work. Order and beauty were, 
of course, the first qualities which he wished to stamp upon 
his surroundings. To this end, he laid out the grounds im- 
mediately surrounding the homestead, arranged the pasture 
and the garden lands, and began the planting of trees and 
hedges. He and Mrs. Mitchell carried the small hemlock- 
trees from the heights behind Edgewood and with their own 

282 



OUTDOOR WORK 

hands planted the hedges which surround the garden and 
form the road boundary. The laying of stone walls and the 
building of gates and gateways occupied much of his atten- 
tion. In his wall-laying he took particular pride. "The 
country wall-layers, ordinarily, are indisposed to attempt 
such work/' he wrote, "either doubting their own capacity, 
or considering it an encroachment upon the province of the 
mason. The consequence has been, in my own experience, 
that of some half-dozen or more which stand here and there 
about the fields at Edgewood, every one has been laid up 
with my own hands; and I may aver, with some pride, that 
after eight or ten winters of frost, they still stand firmly and 
compact." * After the original wooden tenant-house had 
accidentally burned, Mr. Mitchell planned and built chiefly 
from materials on the farm the beautiful little cottage which, 
now remodelled, is the charming home of his daughter, Mrs. 
Susan Mitchell Hoppin. The construction of this cottage 
was one of Mr. Mitchell's first object-lessons in the use of 
Connecticut boulders for building purposes. 

All of this labor of beautifying the outdoor aspects of 
Edgewood was done quietly and without haste. With "the 
current American theory that if a thing needs to be done, it 
should be done at once — with rail-road speed, no matter 
whether it regards politics, morals, religion, or agriculture," 
Mr. Mitchell had little sympathy. Indeed, he loved to 
work leisurely and lovingly. "I think," he wrote, "that 
those who entertain the most keen enjoyment of a country 
homestead, are they who regard it always in the light of 
an unfinished picture — to which, season by season, they 
add their little touches, or their broad, bold dashes of col- 
or; and yet with a vivid and exquisite foresight of the 

1 Out-of-Town Places, 93. 
283 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

future completed charm beaming through their disorderly- 
masses of pigments, like the slow unfolding of a summer's 
day." l In the slow, sure workings of God's Providence he 
had enduring faith. His piquant article, "On Not Doing all 
at Once," gives clear insight into his methods. 2 "It is a 
mistake, therefore, I think," he says in conclusion, "to aim 
at the completion of a country home in a season, or in two, 
or some half a dozen. Its attractiveness lies, or should lie, 
in its prospective growth of charms." Those who wish to 
follow the steps by which Edgewood was developed into a 
homestead famous throughout the world for its quiet, coy, 
and natural beauties, should read My Farm of Edgewood and 
Out-of-Town Places, Mr. Mitchell himself, it may be said 
in passing, always set most store by what he called his Edge- 
wood "farm books." "My Farm of Edgewood '," he wrote in 
1896, "is my best book, if there's any best to them!" A 
delightful supplement to these two farm books is a small 
volume, Pictures of Edgewood, published by Mr. Mitchell in 
1869. 3 These pictures show what the proprietor by labor of 
hand and brain had accomplished at Edgewood in fourteen 
years. In general features Edgewood stands to-day very 
much as Mr. Mitchell planned it during the first dozen years. 
"I think that I have not withheld from view the awk- 
wardnesses and embarrassments which beset a country life 
in New England — nor overstated its possible attractions," 
he wrote in the closing chapter of My Farm of Edgewood, 
"I have sought at any rate to give a truthful picture, and to 
suffuse it all — so far as I might — with a country atmosphere, 
so that a man might read, as if the trees were shaking their 

1 My Farm of Edgewood, 346. 2 Out-of-Town Places, 120-128. 

3 Pictures of Edgewood in a series of photographs by Rockwood, and illustrative 
text by the author of My Farm of Edgewood. 

284 



OUTDOOR WORK 

leaves over his head — the corn rustling through all its ranks 
within hearing, and the flowers blooming at his elbow. Be 
this all as it may — when, upon this charming morning of later 
August, I catch sight, from my window, of the distant 
water — where, as at the first, white sails come and go; of 
the spires and belfries of the near city rising out of their 
bower of elms, of the farm lands freshened by late rains into 
unwonted greenness, of the coppices I have planted, shaking 
their silver leaves, and see the low fire of border flowers 
flaming round their skirts, and hear the water plashing at 
the door in its rocky pool, and the cheery voices of children, 
rejoicing in health and the country air, I do not for a moment 
regret the first sight of the old farm house. ,, Such words of 
satisfaction come only from those who have wrought with 
their own energies in the open air, and upon the face of 
nature. 



285 



XIII 
CIVIL WAR DAYS 

The children who sat for my pictures are grown; the boys that 
I watched at their game of taw, and who clapped their hands glee- 
fully at a good shot, are buttoned into natty blue frocks, and wear 
little lace-bordered bands upon their shoulders, and over and over, 
as I read my morning paper, I am brought to a sudden pause, and 
a strange electric current thrills me, as I come upon their boy- 
names printed in the dead-roll of the war. — Reveries of a Bachelor 
(Preface of 1863), xiii. 

Edgewood had scarcely begun to respond to Mr. Mitch- 
ell's quickening care when the shadow of the Civil War 
fell athwart the nation. Upon few did this shadow fall more 
darkly than upon the Mitchells. In their home met the 
best traditions of the North and the South; the very names, 
Connecticut and South Carolina, suggest the influences that 
combined at Edgewood. It was inevitable that the Con- 
necticut Mitchells would support the Union; it was likewise 
inevitable that the South Carolina Pringles would follow the 
leading of their native State. In common with the people of 
both sections of the country, husband and wife had watched 
the gathering storm, and had dreaded the day of its breaking. 
They realized that, in their home at least, the progress of the 
conflict would mean for both a supreme testing of character. 

During the late summer of i860 Mr. and Mrs. Pringle, 
with their daughters Susan and Rebecca, were visitors at 
Edgewood. As the weeks passed they watched the political 
aspect grow more and more threatening, and when at last 

286 



CIVIL WAR DAYS 

the visit ended it was with sorrow and fear that they turned 
their faces toward Charleston. They were, however, happily 
ignorant of what the future had in store. Of the magnitude 
of the threatened conflict, there were few at that time who 
had any adequate notion. When the Pringles left Edgewood 
they took with them the Mitchells' eldest child, the little 
daughter Hesse, whose birth had occurred in Paris a little 
more than six years previously. It was upon the suggestion 
of Mrs. Mitchell, over whom a premonitory fear of broken 
family ties seemed to rest, that the child accompanied her 
grandparents. "She will be a bond between us," remarked 
Mrs. Mitchell as farewells were spoken. 

After the return of the Pringles to Charleston events 
moved rapidly until the outbreak of war in April 1861. The 
beginning of the struggle found Mr. Mitchell just past his 
thirty-ninth birthday, in a condition of uncertain health, 
with a home unpaid for, and with a family of five small chil- 
dren and another to be born within the year. His duty 
seemed clear. His brother Alfred, unmarried and zealous 
for the Northern cause, immediately hurried from the Sand- 
wich Islands, where he was then residing, and accepted a com- 
mission as captain in the Thirteenth Connecticut Regiment, 
serving later on the staff of Gen. Henry W. Birge. The other 
brother, Louis, although physically disqualified for regular 
service, was nevertheless active in all ways that he could be. 
By the courtesy of Gov. Buckingham, of Connecticut, he 
took passage as ship companion on the vessel which trans- 
ported the Thirteenth Regiment to New Orleans. He made 
himself a kind of historian of Connecticut regiments, and 
furnished much exact information to those who later com- 
piled records. He always rejoiced in the fact that of the half- 
dozen young men whose habit it was to gather in his bachelor 

287 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

apartments in Norwich each Sunday evening, and to whom 
he laughingly referred as his "Sunday-school class," all 
went into the Union army, where they won fame and promo- 
tion, two of them, Messrs. Birge and Harland, achieving the 
rank of general. Alfred, Mary Goddard's "little Alf" of 
Elmgrove days, was also in the service, and was killed in 
battle in Virginia in 1863. Of Mrs. Mitchell's five brothers 
who entered the Confederate army, two were killed. 

During the four years of war Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell bore 
their sorrows with quiet dignity. In the home entire silence 
was maintained with regard to the causes and the merits of 
the conflict. Fortunately the children were too young to 
comprehend, and in after years the mother often expressed 
gratitude that they were not old enough to have opinions. 
The position of Mrs. Mitchell was peculiarly trying. As a 
woman belonging to a prominent South Carolina family, she 
was regarded with ill-concealed suspicion by many of the 
overzealous patriot women of New Haven, and it was a 
grief of which few knew the depth that she was not permitted 
to take active part in the organizations for the relief of Union 
soldiers. 

Once the war had begun, it was not possible for the little 
daughter to return from Charleston. There remained only 
the comfort of letters. Mrs. Mitchell and her mother main- 
tained a regular correspondence — usually writing at least 
once a week — and their letters were always passed. Occa- 
sionally a censor would write on the envelope: "I take plea- 
sure in forwarding this beautiful letter." Only too soon 
were Mrs. Mitchell's fears realized. Early in January 1862 
a brief letter from Mrs. Pringle brought to Edgewood the 
news of little Hesse's death. It told them that after a short 
illness the seven-year-old daughter had died of spinal men- 

288 



CIVIL WAR DAYS 

ingitis, December 27th, 1861, and had been buried in St, 
Michael's Churchyard, Charleston. "I can't tell how hum- 
bled I am by this chastisement," wrote the stricken mother 
to her parents. "Write me as often as you can, for your 
letters comfort and nerve me more than all else; and this blow 
makes me tremble more than ever for what might happen 
next." The friends of the Mitchells knew the peculiar 
poignancy of the grief that had thus come upon the Edge- 
wood home. "My dear Mitchell," wrote George William 
Curtis, from Boston, January 30th, 1862, "I know there is 
nothing to do but to reach out my hand to you and say, God 
bless you and yours ! I do it with all my heart and soul. . . . 
Why should you and your wife, of all, be the victims of these 
bitter days ? Some day, when it is right to do so, tell her 
how deeply I have felt for her; for I have a girl and boy, and 
I have a right to sympathize with you. God keep us all !" 
During the whole of this trying period Mr. Mitchell 
attempted to forget his anxieties and sorrows in labor, and 
in communion with Nature. In his literary work he main- 
tained the same silence with respect to the war as in his 
home. All the while, however, he was following with keenest 
interest the progress of the struggle in its minutest details, 
at times even mapping the significant campaigns. It is only 
through letters to his most intimate friends, and through a 
few scattered notes, that we are enabled to know the work- 
ings of his mind at this time. One who had given as much 
thought as had Mr. Mitchell to principles of government 
and of political economy was certain to have strong and 
well-founded opinions on such a civil struggle. It is of great 
interest to learn the point of view of a man who was a non- 
participant and an observer, of one who occupied a detached 
and isolated position. We should remember that, although 

289 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

he was a non-combatant, he was a thinking one, and a clear- 
thinking one. By native endowment and by education Mr. 
Mitchell was a hater of war and a lover of reason. He had 
watched with impatience the manner in which the war 
spirit had been inflamed by those more zealous than wise, and 
by those dishonestly zealous, both North and South. He 
saw a better way open, a way by which the antiquated sys- 
tem of slavery could be gradually eliminated. He could not 
forget the manner in which Great Britain had dealt with 
the evil. Always this side of Mr. Mitchell's nature was in 
evidence, and he would rejoice to have it emphasized, he 
would take pleasure in being remembered for it. "I wan- 
tonly take the risk of being condemned for an errant conser- 
vative, when I express my belief that there are a great many 
good objects in life which are accomplished better by gradual 
progression toward them than by sudden seizure," he once 
wrote. 1 During the days of which I am writing, however, 
men of the Donald G. Mitchell type were not in the ascen- 
dancy. The war-fever was in the air. The American states 
were experiencing what David Mallet once called "the dis- 
grace of human reason," a disgrace resulting from the fact 
that "mankind in all their controversies, whether about a 
notion or a thing, a predicament or a province, have made 
their last appeal to brute force and violence." Moreover, 
Mr. Mitchell knew the people of both sections of the country, 
and had at no time a fanatic hatred based upon ignorance. 
Many of his college-mates were men from the Far South. 
His long trips through the Southern States had brought him 
into contact with all phases of the life there, and his close 
intimacy with the people had enabled him to understand 
their points of view. It is from such men, rather than from 

1 Out-of-Tozvn Places, 120-12 1. 
290 



CIVIL WAR DAYS 

those who are surrounded by the smoke and the dust of con- 
flict, that we frequently obtain the clearest and least preju- 
diced judgments. 

First of all it needs to be said that Mr. Mitchell recog- 
nized clearly and fully the great unwisdom of any attempt to 
disrupt the Union. "I do not agree with the South," he 
wrote in 1861, "because I regard their action, secession, if 
ever permissible or warrantable by the broadest view of 
reserved rights of states, yet uncalled for by the danger of 
their position; most unwise politically, as alienating their ad- 
herents at the North; and morally wrong, because certain to 
invite immense bloodshed without any commensurate gain 
to themselves in particular, or humanity in general." At the 
same time he resented what seemed to him an almost unrea- 
soning bitterness at the North — a general classing of all 
Southern people as beyond the pale of civilization. A part 
of his attitude was the result, no doubt, of the unmerited 
suspicion which rested upon his home — a suspicion which he, 
in all likelihood, magnified, yet a suspicion which went far 
to make him uncomfortable and irritable. His letter to 
Nathaniel Hawthorne, of July 5th, 1862, can be read aright 
only by recalling the stress of circumstances under which it 
was written. 1 Long after the close of the war, Mr. Mitchell 
held to his custom of thinking as his conscience dictated on 

1 The letter, printed in Julian Hawthorne's Nathaniel Hawthorne and his Wife, 
2.312, was occasioned by Mr. Mitchell's reading of Hawthorne's article, "Chiefly 
about War Matters," in the Atlantic Monthly of July 1862. "A man's opinions can 
take no catholic or philosophic range nowadays, but they call out some shrewish 
accusation of disloyalty," wrote Mr. Mitchell. "It is to me one of the most 
humiliating things about our present national status, that no talk can be tolerated 
which is not narrowed to the humor of our tyrannic majority. I can recognize 
the enormity of basing a new nationality, in our day, upon slavery; but why should 
this blind me to all other enormities ? " Mr. Mitchell always felt that the unauthor- 
ized publication of this letter without a statement of the circumstances surrounding 
it, was unfair. 

29I 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

matters growing out of the struggle. "I have most of all 
chafed under the presumption that has infected everybody 
hereabout in our Northern world," he wrote to his friend 
Huntington (August 6th, 1866 or '67), "whereby every soul 
that made utterance south of the Potomac was consigned 
straight to hell, and every one north of the same line who 
voted the Republican ticket was consigned to heaven. I 
have had the effrontery to believe that Satan would thrust 
his spear (with a barb) into a good many that voted the 
Republican] ticket, as well as into a great many who voted 
the Democratic] ticket. Such belief has not been permissi- 
ble in good society." 

In 1864 Mr. Mitchell wrote an estimate of Washington 
Irving x in which he gave what I consider a good analysis of 
his own character and motives. There can be little question 
that he had himself in mind when he composed the follow- 
ing paragraphs: 

He is a man who clearly shuns controversy, who does not like to 
take blows or to give blows, and whose intellectual life and develop- 
ment find shape and color from this dread of the combative. Not 
that he is without a quiet power and exercise of satire — not that 
follies which strike his attention do not get a thrust from his fine 
rapier; but they are such follies, for the most part, as everybody 
condemns. By reason of this quality in him, he avoids strongly 
controverted points in history; or, if his course lies over them, he 
gives a fairly adjusted average of opinion; he is not in mood for 
trenchant assertions of this or that belief. This same quality, 
again, makes him shun political life. He has a horror of its wordy 
wars, its flood of objurgation. Not that he is without opinions, 
calmly formed, and firmly held; but the entertainment of kindred 
belief he does not make the measure of his friendships. His 

1 "Washington Irving," Atlantic Monthly, June 1864. 
292 



CIVIL WAR DAYS 

character counted on the side of all charity, of forbearance, against 
harsh judgments; it was largely and Christianly catholic, as well 
in things political as literary. He never made haste to condemn. 

There is a rashness in criminating this retirement from every- 
day political conflicts which is, to say the least, very short-sighted. 
Extreme radicalism spurns the comparative inactivity, and says, 
"Lo, a sluggard!" Extreme conservatism spurns it, and says, 
"Lo, a coward !" It is only too true that cowards and sluggards 
both may take shelter under a shield of indifference; but it is 
equally true that any reasonably acute mind, if only charitably 
disposed, can readily distinguish between an inactivity which 
springs from craven or sluggish propensity, and that other which 
belongs to constitutional temperament, and which, while passing 
calm and dispassionate judgment upon excesses of opinion of either 
party, contributes insensibly to moderate the violence of both. 

But whatever may have been Mr. Irving's reluctance to ally 
himself intimately with political affairs, and to assume advocacy 
of special measures, it is certain that he never failed in open- 
hearted, outspoken utterance for the cause of virtue, of human 
liberty, and of his country. 

I have before me a few of the letters which passed between 
Mr. Mitchell and W. H. Huntington during the years of the 
war, and shall give a portion of one of Mr. Mitchell's written 
on the 6th of April 1862, about three months after news of 
the little daughter's death had reached Edgewood. The 
paralysis of spirit occasioned by this chastening is clearly 
evident in the first paragraphs, and it should be borne in 
mind that such spiritual gloom was a part of the Edgewood 
atmosphere from '61 to '6$. Huntington had remarked 
upon the meagreness of his friend's literary output since 
1855, and in reply Mr. Mitchell wrote: 

True enough, as you surmise, I am not very full of literary exe- 
cution; indeed, however full I had been, it is probable that the 

293 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

excitement of the war would have stayed it. But I will not palm 
any such lame excuse upon you. You know well enough my old 
country passion, and how green grass, and trees, and the studies I 
make of them, fill my heart full. You know, too, how nearly this 
life I lead here, comes to the old ideal I had long fed upon. You 
know very well with how little heartiness I ever entered into the 
publicities of city life. All this again I name not in way of valid 
excuse for inaction, but simply as cause. 

If by any exigency I had been pushed into the keen melee of 
towns and kept there, I should have spent the energy and construc- 
tiveness which I have here spent on shrubberies and walks, on books 
and imaginative catastrophes. So, it has not befallen. I lament 
for the sake of friends who express disappointment and indignation, 
far more than on my own score. I might have kindled a great 
deal of abuse which would have made me sore, and some praise 
which would have hardly made me better. The quick love I had 
once for reputation is, I am ashamed to say, almost infinitesimal. 
One reason of my under-valuation of it is, I think, the absurd over- 
praise which was once given me. I really believe I could do much 
better things than I have done, not perhaps so buoyant with young, 
fresh sentiment, which like the sight of Rome comes to no man 
twice; but things of sharper edge, and keener insight, and wider 
truth. For my children's sake and for the possible good they 
might work, I sometimes yearn to do them — far more than for any 
lift of reputation. 

And then follows a confidential utterance of opinion in 
regard to the war. It is worth while to emphasize the date 
of the letter, April 6th, 1862: 

As for the war, I may talk freely with you since we stand on 
nearly even ground — you having effectively expatriated yourself, 
and I, virtually done the same, by my retirement, and my abnega- 
tion of all politics, even to voting. The most aggravating aspect of 
the war to me personally is the split it goes to make in the family 

294 



CIVIL WAR DAYS 

allegiance of my children. I can't tolerate the thought of their 
cursing one set of ancestors, and swearing by the other. I shall 
try and teach them early that southern people are not all negro- 
stealers, and the Yankees not all penny-wise meddlers in other 
men's matters. You may laugh at my fears on such score, but if 
you had read our daily local papers for two years past, and those 
of the South in the same time, and known how far current talk has 
taken on the same devilish coloring, you would understand it. 

As for the political economy of the matter, and every govern- 
ment question is one of political economy, my opinion is of course 
with yours against Southern action, and against the madness of 
basing any scheme of government in this age upon an exploded 
system. . . . Slavery is an immense, long-bolstered evil of 
civilization, and we must ease it down into the limbo of past 
things. 

As for the war, I see no near end. Gen. Tyler thinks it lies in 
June, at furthest. I wish I thought so. I believe there are a mil- 
lion able-bodied men (a small minimum) who had rather die than 
yield; and I can see no present prospect of shooting them off by 
June. As for "Unionism," I fear it has bated hour by hour, since 
the war began. 

Independently of the declared basis of slavery for the Confeder- 
ate states, I think the sympathies of the larger part of the civilized 
world, would rally to the Southern cause. We Northerners can, of 
course, not easily forget, or forego, our pride in the great "Union"; 
but outsiders feel nothing of this. They see only that five or six 
millions of people, for alleged wrongs (or fears of wrong) wish to 
dissolve their old national partnership, and govern themselves. If 
the slave question were out of the way as I said, this action, whether 
brusque^ or inorderly, or mad, would, if persisted in, rally the sym- 
pathies of those who believe in democracy. Supposing a "people" 
decide by ballot to assert, and work out their independence, and 
secure a government after their own formulas, how small must the 
"people" be to make their action indefensible (not in view of con- 

295 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

stitutions or compacts but) in view of their "inalienable right"? 
Are not a few millions of souls enough ? 

I must confess that I am not the unmitigated admirer of our 
" nationality " that some men are. I do not believe that we Ameri- 
cans have crowned civilization, and wrought out the ne plus ultra of 
humanity. I believe only, that we have made a bold and grand 
experiment, which has given larger faith in men's capacity to rule 
themselves, than ever existed before; but only this. And as this 
revolution strikes us, we stand poised on the perilous edge of our 
success. If all our rulers (voters) loved liberty heartily, and hated 
tyranny firmly, and abided by rules of honesty, I should feel sure 
of a grand result; but I fear greatly that the "character" of the 
nation (or of the bulk of the men who compose it) is below the level 
of that honorable intent, and perfect disinterestedness which would 
deal firmly and generously with the troubles upon us. I hope I am 
[a] false prophet. 

My fear is that success will inaugurate a military dynasty that 
shall ignore all the privileges of our past times; and that want of 
success will drive us into cowardly bargain by which we may reap 
money-rewards out of slave labor, again. In either event I should 
lose my pride in America as the country of free institutions, and 
promise for humanity. 

To this letter Huntington in part replied from Paris, 
August 1 8th, 1862: 

Your letter of 6th April has been lying in sight ever since its 
receipt . . . and few of my transatlantic friends are oftener in 
mind than you, especially since the commencement of the war, 
which touches you more nearly than many of them. So far from 
being capable of laughing at the anxiety you express as to the "split 
it goes to make in the family allegiance of your children," I sympa- 
thize with you most sincerely in that natural solicitude. But I 
often think that families like yours will help to restore a human so- 
cial union hereafter between the South and North, so divided now, 

296 



CIVIL WAR DAYS 

whether their political separation be permanent or not. They will 
help to confirm the peace which it has long seemed to me it may be 
the work of diplomatists to negotiate between C. S. A. and U. S. A. 
x years hence. 

Huntington spoke truly when he said that families such 
as the Mitchells and Pringles would help to restore "a human 
social union" between the two sections of the country. Out 
of the furnace of affliction they came with the marks of suffer- 
ing upon them, marks which in the case of the parents re- 
mained until the end of life; yet they emerged with chastened 
and enlarged spirits, which sought to bind up the wounds of 
fratricidal strife. Mr. Mitchell never again visited the 
South. He said that he had no desire to see the ravages 
which war had wrought on the once prosperous and beautiful 
country. Twice Mrs. Mitchell visited her parents, and did 
what she could to solace them in their grief and desolation. 
Twice Mr. and Mrs. Pringle came North, and sat once more 
in the shade of the Edgewood trees. For them all, war had 
done its worst in the way of destruction of property and 
physical death; it had not destroyed the foundations of 
human affection — those invisible foundations upon which 
rest the abiding things of the spirit. 



297 



XIV 

LITERATURE AND ART 

Reformers and teachers are learning that their labors to tell 
upon the minds of men must be directed by that delicate tact 
which, in respect of logic, is but another name for taste. One book 
or one treatise which steals its way into the mind by delicate ap- 
proaches, will stick longer by a man's purpose, and give more color 
to his thought, than hundreds whose lean, dry, barren periods touch 
him with as little warmth as belongs to the fingers of the dead. 

Throughout the vegetable world, with only rare exceptions, 
growth is assured and sealed with bloom. So in matters social and 
moral, progress is not ended, nor all that we bring under that con- 
venient term civilization, fully compacted and perfected, until set 
off with the coronal bloom of art. — D. G. M. in unpublished lec- 
tures. 

Of the outdoor work which occupied Mr. Mitchell until 
the feebleness of old age rendered it impracticable, the reader 
has already been told. Such work, however, was but a por- 
tion of the full and rich life that was lived at Edge wood. In 
a way that certainly has had few parallels Mr. Mitchell's 
days were filled with labors of body and mind; hand and 
brain were always active. He lived a wholesome life. 
Nathaniel Hawthorne once called Mr. Mitchell's attention 
to the sane balance of the Edgewood routine. 1 "Your praise 
of Our Old Home" wrote Mr. Hawthorne, " though I know 

1 In the concluding portion of a letter dated January 16th, 1864, of which the 
first part is published in American Lands and Letters , 2. 161. 

298 



LITERATURE AND ART 

that I ought to set down a great part of it as a friendly exag- 
geration, gives me inexpressible pleasure; because I have 
fallen into a quagmire of disgust and despondency with 
respect to literary matters. I am tired of my own thoughts 
and fancies, and my own mode of expressing them — a mis- 
fortune which I am sure will never befall you, partly because 
you will never deserve it, and partly because you keep your- 
self healthful by grappling with the wholesome earth so 
strenuously." It remains now to tell of the fruitful literary 
activities which centred in the Edgewood home, and of the 
aesthetic studies which set off all with "the coronal bloom 
of art." 

The library which Mr. Mitchell had been gathering 
through many years was collected for use, and when he en- 
tered upon the management of his farm he had no thought 
of "forswearing books." Rather, he intended that the 
freshness of the outdoors should brighten the library, and 
that the inspiration of books should in turn enliven the labors 
of the field. "The books practical and poetical which relate 
to flower and field, stand wedded on my shelves and wedded 
in my thought," he has told us. 1 "In the text of Xenophon 
I see the ridges piling along the Elian fields, and in the music 
of Theocritus I hear a lark that hangs hovering over the 
straight-laid furrows. An elegy of Tibullus peoples with lov- 
ers a farmstead that Columella describes. The sparrows of 
Guarini twitter up and down along the steps of Crescenzi's 
terraced gardens. Hugh Piatt dibbles a wheat-lot, and 
Spenser spangles it with dew. Tull drives his horse-hoe 
afield where Thomson wakes a chorus of voices, and flings 
the dappling shadows of clouds. Why divorce these twin- 
workers toward the profits and the entertainment of a rural 

1 Wet Days at Edgewood, 12-13. 
299 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

life ? Nature has solemnized the marriage of the beautiful 
with the practical by touching some day, sooner or later, 
every lifting harvest with a bridal sheen of blossoms; no 
clover-crop is perfect without its bloom, and no pasture hill- 
side altogether what Providence intended it should be until 
the May sun has come and stamped it over with its fiery 
brand of dandelions." 

During the five or six years immediately following 1855 
Mr. Mitchell's literary output was not large. Most of his 
energy was consumed in the creation of Edgewood, in the 
development of its peculiarly individual atmosphere and 
charm. Within that time he had, to be sure, written and 
delivered many lectures, and contributed several papers to 
Harper s Magazine, Such literary work, however, was but 
casual and preliminary to the really large amount that fol- 
lowed. It was only after the beginning of the Civil War that, 
stirred partly by the necessity of enlarging his income, partly 
by the desire to relieve the anxiety occasioned by the conflict, 
he applied himself vigorously to composition. It was during 
the war period and immediately following, that he wrought 
out his rural studies, first as magazine articles, later as books. 
My Farm of Edgewood grew out of an article on "Agriculture 
as a Profession; or, Hints About Farming," which appeared 
in the New Englander of November i860. The delightful 
series of papers which ran in the Atlantic Monthly from April 
1863 until September 1864 under the title "Wet Weather 
Work" — a title indicative of the fact that no days at Edge- 
wood were idle days — came to publication in book form as 
Wet Days at Edgewood in 1865. Seven Stories (1864), a vol- 
ume of short narratives, half fiction, half truth, grew out of 
his musings over the five little note-books of European travel. 
Out-qf-Town Places , first issued as Rural Studies in 1867, con- 

300 



LITERATURE AND ART 

sists of a gathering together of papers contributed to The 
Horticulturist, and Hours at Home, from 1865 to 1867. 

Toward the close of the war Mr. Mitchell turned to the 
fulfilment of a long-cherished design — the production of a 
longer and more serious work of fiction than he had yet 
written. He had conceived the notion at least as early as 
1852. Sketchings of the plot occur in his early note-books, 
together with two prospective titles, the one, The New Eng- 
land Vicar, for "a story resembling the Vicar of Wakefield'' ; 
the other, A Passage in the Life of Doctor Johns, Orthodox 
Minister of Ashfield, in Connecticut. It is perhaps unfortu- 
nate that Dr. Johns was written for serial publication in the 
Atlantic Monthly. Such method led to occasional procrasti- 
nation in plotting and composition, and Mr. Mitchell always 
did best when he wrote continuously and in a glow. Hunt- 
ington, who watched the progress of the story with great 
interest, feared that it would not be successful, and depre- 
cated work which in his opinion prevented the author from 
producing that for which he was best fitted. From New 
York City, on the 9th of January 1866, Huntington wrote: 

When and how are you to wind up Dr. Johns ? I liked the last 
number better than almost any other that I have read. It seems 
to me that you have, in a sort, cornered yourself; and short of a 
huddled, break-down denouement, you must close with higher, 
finer effects than your readers had, two months ago, any right to 
expect or ask from you. Still, I want to see you free of this story- 
telling and frankly given up to your true specialty — essaying, with 
disguised wisdom, on strictly practical themes. 

At last, in the Atlantic of June 1866, Mr. Mitchell suc- 
ceeded in bringing the narrative to an end, and set about at 
once to prepare it for publication in book form. "I send 

301 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

you," he wrote to Huntington, September 2d, 1866, "a rare 
print of preface to Dr. Johns — rare because Scribner objected 
as furnishing newspapers material for onslaught, and there- 
fore it will not appear; hence, only two copies were struck." 
At least one of these rare copies has survived, and it is inter- 
esting to read it now when all the heat of discussion has sub- 
sided, and the fears of harm that the book might do have 
passed away. The proscribed preface ran thus: 

The following book was first published in the Atlantic Monthly , 
and I was tempted to this manner of work by the urgence and lib- 
erality of my friend Mr. Fields, the successful and accomplished 
conductor of that magazine. The title, however, which I give 
upon the initial page, Mr. Fields condemned as too long. I return 
to it now as expressive of the humble pretensions of a book which 
neither in construction or in number or variety of characters shows 
the usual qualities of a novel. 

Its semi-religious tone has called down upon my head certain 
private rebukes. There are very good people who have fancied 
that my aim was to throw ridicule upon the priestly office; there 
are others who have seriously questioned my orthodoxy; and still 
others who have objected a too kindly representation of the 
Romish faith. 

Surely nothing could have been further from my mind than to 
throw ridicule upon the character of an honest Christian teacher, 
of whatever faith. As for orthodoxy, it is so hard to say precisely 
what it means nowadays, that I can make neither denial or aver- 
ment — if the word bore its old Greek significance only, it appears 
to me that every man should be modest in declaring that he was 
sure of himself. While I do not adhere to the rituals or ceremonials 
of the Romish hierarchy, either by education, or by love, and while 
I abhor utterly the present leash of its august head with the des- 
potic traditions of the past, I have yet a tender respect for a church 
which has counted so many Christian veterans in its ranks, which 

302 



LITERATURE AND ART 

has given a serene faith to millions, and whose charities have flowed 
steadily into the lap of the poor from the beginning. 

My chief object has been to illustrate the phases of New Eng- 
land village-life twenty to forty years ago. This I have tried to do 
faithfully, and have sought to bring the religious manifestations 
into higher relief by introducing a foreign element in the person of 
the French girl — Adele. It is quite possible that my pictures may 
seem untrue to many who have had equal opportunities of obser- 
vation; all I can say is, that if they had not seemed true to me, I 
should never have written them. 

I know that this apologetic strain cannot be grateful to a serious 
reader, and that whatever I may say here on my card of introduc- 
tion, I shall finally be judged by what is written further on. I see 
very much that should have been made better; very much that a 
finer and firmer hand would have dashed out altogether; but I see 
nothing palpably unfair or untrue. A writer who cannot give him- 
self this much of praise should never write at all. It is a longer 
venture than any with which I have yet taxed the public — a public 
that has heretofore shown me so kind a welcome that, from mere 
habit, I am inclined to count upon its kindness now; most of all, 
I have tried to teach charity in the book; and I close this little note 
of introduction asking for charity. 

To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new ! 

Edgewood Farm, July 1866. 

In a letter to Huntington, January 2d, 1867, the author 
detailed the fate of the book upon publication, and his own 
reflections now that the work was completed: 

The non-success of Dr. Johns has confirmed your opinion; yet 
it is not altogether non-success. High price was against it, and 
Charles Reade's Griffith Gaunt (just then out) was against it, this 
latter selling at seventy-five cents, and Br. Johns at $3.25. Judge 
which sold ! Yet, say all you will against it, no book I have written 

303 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

since the Reveries has called out so many return letters of thanks 
and sympathy from private quarters. I am not at all satisfied 
with it, but I think there is good intent in it. The orthodox papers 
have all opened their blasts upon it, and Boston Recorder says it is 
as safe on a parlor table as a bomb-shell would be ! There's a com- 
pliment — not meant. Shall I anger you if I say I am casting about 
for the wherewithal to make a story that will be better? I don't 
like to leave the field beaten. I thoroughly believe that if I had 
written it (without periodic publication) at a heat, and by a third 
shorter — keeping glow alive, I should have made it a success. As 
it is, about 4,000 have been sold. 

On the 6th of March 1894, beneath the first sketching of 
the plot in the note-book of 1852, Mr. Mitchell wrote that the 
carrying out of the plot was never satisfactory to him. 
"That book," he concludes, "was started on lines that should 
have made it a great deal better book than it is." In 1907 he 
referred to it as a "longish pastoral, half romance and half 
real"; and it is this portion of reality that gives the book 
much of its value. Whatever may be its faults of construc- 
tion, these do not obscure the historical significance of the 
novel. The book is an almost unsparing "diagnosis of a dy- 
ing Puritanism," and portrays the processes and results of 
an unyielding but mistaken religious educational regime. 
Those who wish to know the atmosphere of the Connecticut 
villages of Mr. Mitchell's boyhood, the perfervid religious 
zeal of such ministers as the Rev. Alfred Mitchell and his 
contemporaries, and the "preposterous shapes" which the 
religious instruction of the times took in young minds, should 
read Dr. Johns. It is contemporary evidence of the first 
quality, and its value as a side-light on New England life and 
customs will become clearer with the passing years. 

Early in the war period Mr. Mitchell began to give over 

304 



LITERATURE AND ART 

thought of bringing to completion his study of Venetian 
history, and within a few years he abandoned systematic 
work upon it. As early as 1850 he had prepared a lecture on 
Venice, which in amplified form he repeated for a good many 
years. The subject never ceased to have attraction for him, 
but he came to realize that one lifetime is insufficient for 
the completion of all one's literary projects. A paragraph 
from a letter to Huntington, April 6th, 1862, shows how the 
matter was shaping itself in his mind: 

As for the history, the magnum opus, it bides because of its 
largeness. You know I always liked symmetry and completeness, 
even in figures of speech; and the completeness of so many centuries 
of history has taken a nightmare shape of hugeness. The more I 
have read and thought upon it, the more I seem only half through 
the alphabet of the matter. Ten years in Italy, five in France, 
seem essential to measure the fullness of it. I wish my name had 
never been connected with a history of Venice. In that event I 
might bring out a rapid, graphic esquisse of the salient periods of 
the Venetian history, which I think would carry the color, and 
show the drift of that weird national tide which ebbed and flowed 
about the sunken city. 

During the sixties Mr. Mitchell's writings on agricultural 
and rural subjects attracted such wide-spread and favorable 
notice that when Messrs. Pettengill and Bates founded what 
it was their purpose to make the best farm-journal in Amer- 
ica, he was asked to assume the editorship. The choice was 
heartily approved throughout the country. "I have read 
all thy writings as they appeared," wrote John G. Whittier 
to the new editor, November nth, 1868, "and always with 
interest and sympathy. I know of no one who is more 
worthy of the honorable and responsible position of editor of 

305 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

a rural and family paper of a high order, than thyself." 
The confidence of the public was not misplaced. Mr. 
Mitchell immediately stamped his personality upon the new 
enterprise. His was the choice of name, Hearth and Home, 
his was the design for the heading — the ivy-covered entrance 
to the English farm cottage 1 at Edgewood, with Mrs. Mitchell 
and two of the children sitting on the steps; his was the choice 
of quotation from Shakespeare, as motto for the magazine — 

All superfluous branches 
We lop away, that bearing boughs may live. 

From the first issue, dated December 26th, 1868, until 
that of September 24th, 1870, when the magazine passed into 
other hands, Mr. Mitchell was the life of Hearth and Home, 
He secured for it contributions from the leading literary and 
scientific men of the time, kept the illustrated portion up to 
the highest standard, and put his best effort into his own 
editorial writing. A portion of his initial editorial reveals the 
manner in which he approached his task, and the temper 
which marked the magazine while under his direction: 

[WJhile we shall take all needful measures to give to the farmer 
whatever scientific or practical information he may require, we 
shall also seek, by the medium of this journal, to extend a refining 
influence over his home and fireside, and to make him a better and 
larger and cheerier man, while we make him a better and wiser 
farmer. To this end we shall hope to kindle and increase his love 
for flowers and fruits, for neatness and order, for good reading, 
and for all the comforts of home. . . . We shall teach unflinch- 
ingly that lack of neatness and order about a country home can 
never be compensated for by any isolated beauty of tree or garden, 

1 This picture of the cottage entrance appears on the title-pages of the volumes 
forming the Edgewood edition of Mr. Mitchell's works. 

306 



LITERATURE AND ART 

and furthermore shall preach and teach that no essential beauty of 
a farmer's or a laborer's home is at war with the economies of his 
daily life. . . . [W]e shall also urge upon him an exercise of that 
broader zeal for improvement which will look to the interests and 
growth of his neighborhood. We have no faith in the breadth 
of that man's rural taste who is satisfied when all is to his liking 
within the compass of his own circuit of wall. He owes other duty 
to his roadside, and to his neighbors, and to the village or town 
where he is resident. He should rally to the support of every de- 
sirable public improvement which is set on foot, and endeavor to 
promote that combined effort without which no public improve- 
ments are possible. . . . [W]e shall plead for the establishment 
of public parks, counting them a most wise and healthy adjunct to 
every considerable city, where the work-woman may take her 
babes, and where youth of every degree may learn to love the 
beauty of tree and lake and lawn, and bless God for the oppor- 
tunity to enjoy. . . . Finally, and by way of summing up of this, 
our salutation, we hope to win over our sluggish farm friends 
everywhere to a wiser economy, to a larger thrift, to a better prac- 
tice, and to show them the way of it. We hope to win country 
friends, of whatever pursuit, to a larger and livelier love of hearth 
and home, and to incite them to efforts to make their hearths 
cheerful and their homes beautiful, believing that in so doing, we 
shall promote that calmness of mind and cheerfulness of temper 
and charity of purpose which will make them better citizens. 

Never once during his editorship did Mr. Mitchell allow 
the magazine to deviate from the high ideal which he had 
thus set up for it. It is a delight to-day to read the first 
ninety-two numbers — the Mitchell numbers — of Hearth and 
Home. They combine that practical spirit and that literary 
quality which only such a man as Donald G. Mitchell could 
bring together in the pages of a farm magazine. The stand- 
ard of such magazines was greatly elevated by the example 

307 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

of Hearth and Home. Unfortunately, the founders had pro- 
jected the enterprise on too large a scale. Mr. Mitchell, as 
editor-in-chief, had no connection with the business manage- 
ment of the magazine. He withdrew in September 1870 
when the proprietors found it necessary to dispose of their 
interests to Orange Judd & Co., and Mr. David M. Judd 
assumed editorial supervision. There was general regret 
when the change of editorship became known. In chroni- 
cling the change one newspaper 1 declared: "But as for us — 
and thousands of others, we believe — we shall always miss 
in that journal the exquisite touch of the man Ik Marvel, 
who presided at its birth, gave it its name, and largely aided 
in pushing it to popularity with a rapidity almost unprece- 
dented in the history of American journalism." 

After his withdrawal from the staff of Hearth and Home, 
Mr. Mitchell's literary work was confined chiefly to magazine 
writing and to lecturing. The part which came to complet- 
est fulfilment was that which appeared under the general 
title English Lands , Letters, and Kings, with the two kindred 
volumes, American Lands and Letters. These volumes were 
the outgrowth of lectures which he began preparing as early 
as 1 88 1. He was encouraged in their preparation by Mary 
Goddard's daughter, Mrs. Julia C. G. Piatt, mistress of a 
school for girls in Utica, New York. In a letter to Mrs. 
Piatt of March 23d, 1881, he wrote: "I have prepared 
six . . . lectures of forty-five minutes length on topics sug- 
gested by our conversation. They are nominally on English 
literature and history; but they take in topography also, and 
are intended to make young people eager about English 
waysides, whether they travel in fact, or only travel in his- 

1 1 have been unable to identify the paper from which this clipping was made. 
The clipping is dated 1871. 

308 



LITERATURE AND ART 

tory, and through English poems. They are not of a sort to 
satisfy a critic, or a professor of history; but they have been 
very well received. . . . The six lectures named only come 
down from early Saxon times to the days of Elizabeth — of 
course dealing with some authors not very familiarly known; 
but with none, I think, about whom there is no need to 
know." 

For a good many years he continued to extend the scope 
of these lectures, which he read before many audiences within 
easy travelling distance of Edgewood. In the autumn of 
1884 he lectured for one term on English literature before 
the young men of Yale College. The young women of Wells 
College likewise had the pleasure of listening to a series of 
similar lectures. It was at Wells that Mr. Mitchell made 
the acquaintance of Miss Frances Folsom, an acquaintance 
which he commemorated in 1 895 by dedicating to her — who 
meantime, as the wife of Grover Cleveland, had become 
Mistress of the White House — the third volume of English 
Lands, Letters , and Kings. 

I find a note in which Mr. Mitchell speaks of the manner 
in which he prepared his lectures. " I read, and re-read, and 
consider, and observe," he remarks, "trying to saturate my 
mind with all the leading facts of the time. I try very hard 
by reading and note-taking — not merely history, but fiction, 
poetry, paintings (if there are any) — to translate myself to 
the atmosphere of the [period]; and with that mood upon me, 
go at my task. I do not feel bound in doing this to give one 
great name just so many pages, and such another so many 
more; not at all. I take them as they come bubbling to the 
surface of that flood of memories of those times I have tried 
to set on the flow; and describe so many and such as will best 
give satisfaction, and vivid sense of the current and of the 

309 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

characters. " He was always very modest in speaking of his 
books on English and American literature, feeling, as he 
usually felt in regard to all his books, that they should have 
been a great deal better than they are. In preparing these 
volumes on literature it needs to be said that Mr. Mitchell 
knew exactly what he was attempting to do, and with Dr. 
Samuel Johnson might have said he "knew very well how 
to do it." He was not attempting to push forward the limits 
of knowledge, nor was he "grubbing in the rubbish heaps of 
antiquity" for chance bits of overlooked fact. He himself 
found the vast field of English literature a "realm of gold," 
and in wandering there obtained refreshment for his soul. It 
was to share with others this refreshment, it was to lure 
others — and especially young people — into the enchanted 
land, that he wrote. "Remember," he exclaims in the sec- 
ond volume of English Lands, Letters, and Kings, "and let 
me say it once for all — that my aim is not so much to give 
definite instruction as to put the reader into such ways and 
starts of thought as shall make him eager to instruct him- 
self." It was immensely gratifying to Mr. Mitchell to have 
generous evidence of the fact that these volumes, and the 
lectures from which they grew, did just what he wished them 
to do. A whole generation of young Americans followed him 
into the goodly kingdom of literature along these paths of 
his making; and thousands of his own generation followed 
the trails with keenest pleasure, seeing through the magic 
light which the author shed upon them "the green of the 
lands, the gold of the letters, and the purple of the kings." 1 
No other discourses on English and American letters fill 
just the place of these books. The author had learned ex- 

1 1 have quoted from a letter in which his Yale classmate, Prof. Joseph Emer- 
son, of Beloit College, thanked Mr. Mitchell for a copy of English Lands. 

3IO 



LITERATURE AND ART 

actly what he could best do, and he attempted nothing else. 
"He does not aim to be recondite and full," wrote one re- 
viewer. 1 "But for a gathering together of raw material and 
putting it into the furnace of an active, transfusing mind, 
casting out the dross, and bringing out the nuggets of pure 
gold, we have nothing like it in our literature." Another 2 
commented upon "the author's gift for distilling the very 
quintessence of biography." When, in addition to these 
gifts, we recognize that further and greater one by virtue of 
which everything is seen under a magic light 

Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy, 

we shall understand in some degree the wide circulation, the 
secret of the charm, and the inspiring quality of this series of 
books with which Mr. Mitchell formally closed his almost 
sixty years of authorship. 3 

It was a magnificent tale of work in the realm of letters 
that he had thus accomplished, a work with which many men, 
though they had done nothing else, would have been satisfied. 
It should again be emphasized, however, that his writings 
represent only a portion of Mr. Mitchell's achievement. All 
the while he had been pushing forward his studies in the 
aesthetics of rural life. After the purchase of Edgewood he 
grew very naturally into landscape-gardening, an art which 
he cultivated for many years. For a time (i 867-1 868), he 
formed a partnership in landscape-gardening and rural archi- 
tecture with Mr. William H. Grant, former superintending 
engineer of Central Park, New York City. Upon assuming 
the editorship of Hearth and Home Mr. Mitchell severed his 

1 In the Baltimore Sun, October 1897. 

2 In the Nation, December 1897. 

8 With the second volume of American Lands and Letters, in 1899. 

311 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

connection with Mr. Grant, and as time and opportunity 
permitted, carried on the work alone. He was never a 
noisy advertiser. "I am sure of my capacity to lay out 
grounds well" he wrote Huntington, January 2d, 1867, 
"but I haven't the faculty of noisy reclamation which in 
these days goes before success." Notwithstanding his quiet 
method of procedure, his services were frequently sought. 
Among colleges, Princeton and Lafayette secured his advice 
on the laying out and planting of grounds. The city of 
Allegheny, Pennsylvania, adopted with few changes Mr. 
Mitchell's designs for parks. In 1876 he furnished the de- 
sign for the Connecticut Building at the Centennial Exposi- 
tion, Philadelphia, a State building generally accounted one 
of the best at the exposition. In 1882 he made an elaborate 
report to the commissioners of the city of New Haven on the 
layout of East Rock Park, of which most of the provisions 
were adopted. He gave much thought to a complete park 
system for New Haven, and drew detailed plans which, 
chiefly because of the expense involved, were not adopted. 
In addition to this public work, he gave a touch of beauty to 
many private estates. His appointment as an additional 
commissioner of the United States to the Paris Universal 
Exposition in 1878 came as a recognition of the work he had 
accomplished in these fields. In 1867 his name was pre- 
sented as that of the best possible man in the United States 
for the commissionership of agriculture; but the fact that 
the commissioner of education was chosen that year from 
Connecticut seemingly made Mr. Mitchell's appointment 
impossible. 

Meantime he had been devoting himself to a study of 
painters and painting, and indulging his love of color by mak- 
ing water-color drawings for his own amusement. His 

312 



LITERATURE AND ART 

European travel, in particular his residence in Italy, had 
stimulated all his artistic sensibilities. He never had special 
instruction in art — he was entirely self-taught; but he did 
have confidence in his knowledge of the principles which 
underlie the art of the painter, and felt that he knew how to 
evaluate good painting. His artistic sense was fitly recog- 
nized in New Haven by his appointment at the founding of 
the Yale Art School in 1865 as one of the four members of 
the advisory council. He frequently lectured before the 
school, one of his lectures, "Titian and his Times," appearing 
in Bound Together} 

I cannot forbear quoting the apt words 2 of Mr. Arthur 
Reed Kimball. "Indeed," wrote Mr. Kimball, "it would be 
hard for even a casual reader to imagine Mr. Mitchell as 
other than an artist, whatever his form of expression. It is 
its artistic feeling which gives character to his work in litera- 
ture. His distinguishing note is grace, charm, felicity of 
phrase. It is his artistic quality, the perfection with which 
the lightest thought is caught and held, and the slightest 
turn made, that has appealed to readers of to-day as it ap- 
pealed at the first." 

Nor should we lose sight of the fact that all these activi- 
ties were spontaneous outgrowths of the man's character. 
He loved literature, he loved nature, he loved to impose his 
mind upon broad sweeps of landscape, he loved art in its 
every phase; and always behind the art he sought to under- 
stand the personality of the artist. Loving these things as 
he did, he desired that others should love them also. Yet 
he never attempted to commend the things he loved by ob- 
trusive methods; his approach was always coy — a shy steal- 

1 See pp. 19-60. 

8 See "The Master of Edgewood," Scribner's Magazine, February 1900. 

3*3 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

ing into the good graces of the public. The style in which he 
presented whatever subject he had in hand was in many 
instances the lure which attracted. People found them- 
selves submitting to his quiet charm. And when once they 
had paused to listen, they usually remained to become dis- 
ciples. 

In conclusion I need only say that in 1910 Mr. Mitchell's 
friends and neighbors — those who knew his work and the 
tenor of his life — took steps to perpetuate his memory most 
fittingly by organizing the Donald G. Mitchell Memorial 
Library. The thought of such memorial would have been 
a source of happiness to him. Year after year this library 
will grow in size and influence; year after year it will be a 
never-failing spring from which will flow living waters. And 
so long as its treasured wealth and its outward form inspire 
and uplift men, it will remain a worthy memorial of Mr. 
Mitchell's achievements in literature and in art. 



314 



XV 

THE GOSPEL OF BEAUTY 

And while we are astonishing the world with our power, our 
wealth, our bigness, is it not worth while to adorn them all with 
somewhat of that elegance which refines the man — somewhat in 
our schools, in our arts, in our landscape, in our letters, in our 
homes, in ourselves, which shall stand in evidence that money and 
power were not all to us, but only weapons with which to conquer 
some higher place? — D. G. M. in unpublished lecture. 

I have elsewhere called attention to the fact that in Mr. 
Mitchell the culture and refinement of a long line of ancestry 
flowered. A wide diversity of gifts was his by inheritance, 
and by virtue of this inheritance and his own application he 
gained distinction in business, in aesthetics, in literature. I 
wish now to emphasize the further fact that his achieve- 
ments were not fragmentary and scattered, but rather re- 
lated portions of a consistent whole. Careful study of his 
life reveals clearly a definite unity through all the diversity, 
and enables us to see that in whatever work he engaged, he 
was guided by a sense of taste which sprang from some deep- 
rooted perception of beauty. 

Of the different theories underlying the philosophy of 
beauty, Mr. Mitchell had a good knowledge. Of mere 
theory, however, he was, I am convinced, always rather im- 
patient. There may have been times when with Plato he 
could ask for a description or definition of beauty in general; 
yet for the most part he turned from abstract discussions to 
things beautiful in themselves. He most certainly believed 

31S 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

that mere definitions, or what sometimes pass for such, 
rarely help in the actual recognition of beauty in particular. 
From all such definitions he turned with a sense of relief to 
the contemplation of color, landscape, poem, picture, and 
character, and saw in each the beauty which his soul recog- 
nized. With respect to the beauty of any particular thing, 
he would doubtless have used the words of the old sailor who, 
when asked how he told a good sailing-vessel, replied: "By 
a blow of the eye, sir." It is enough to say that, as in the 
case of John Milton, there had been instilled into him "a 
vehement love of the beautiful," and that it was his habit 
"day and night to seek for this idea of the beautiful, as for a 
certain image of supreme beauty, through all the forms and 
faces of things, and to follow it," as it led him on by "some 
sure traces " which he seemed to recognize. And it was char- 
acteristic of him that he wished to share all that his search 
revealed to him. Although he was in himself shy and re- 
tiring — manifesting many of the traits of a recluse — he had 
an eminently social genius. He never forgot the admonition 
which he voiced in his Yale valedictory — "live for your fel- 
low men." In a very significant sense the work of his life 
was to spread the gospel of beauty. 

In the early fifties, when he was beginning his career as a 
public speaker, he wrote a lecture entitled "The Uses of 
Beauty," which he frequently read in many parts of the 
country. It was a plea for beauty in all the departments of 
life, an urging upon the public of "the profit and necessity of 
blending taste, or the sentiment of beauty, with the practical 
aims of life, and with whatever perfects civilization." In 
that sentence, it seems to me, he summarized what was to be 
one of the most compelling motives of his life, and indicated 
one of the results to which the influence of his life most 

316 



THE GOSPEL OF BEAUTY 

powerfully contributed. It was his conviction that beauty 
should permeate every detail of life from the simplest acts 
of domestic service to the most conspicuous acts in the life 
of a nation. "The truth is," he one time wrote in speaking 
of American life, "the truth is, beauty with us, and its per- 
ception, is too much reckoned a thing apart from the aims 
and appliances of every-day life." I shall later show what 
effect Mr. Mitchell's conviction and practice had upon his 
own home life. 

He saw and emphasized the urgent need of instilling this 
sentiment of beauty into school-children and thus of reaching 
the life of the nation at its source. He pointed out the wis- 
dom of endeavoring at the earliest possible moment to 
quicken the senses and perceptions of American youth. It 
should not be forgotten that he was among the pioneers who 
sought to bring about better conditions in our educational 
system. 

Is it not possible [he asked] to give the school-boy some more 
correct notion of elegance or harmony than he is apt to derive from 
the shapeless mass of timber and clapboards in which he finds the 
rudiments of his education? Is the desk at which he studies, 
whittled all over into vulgar fractions, a good model for any 
cabinet-making genius that may lie in him ? If he studies incon- 
tinently such wretched typography as Webster s Primary Speller, 
upon what, in the name of reason, can he found any notion of ele- 
gance? And when he comes himself to be the father, or curator, 
of a stock of boys, will he not in all likelihood, repeat the old design, 
school-house, desk, primer, and all? 

Suppose, however, that the building where his ideas of form be- 
gin development were a modest but perfect type of some accredited 
form of architecture; suppose that the interior walls were decorated 
with some simple but well and firmly drawn illustrations of geogra- 

317 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

phy, or of natural history; suppose that his desk were complete in 
its adaptation, and so neat in its finish that he would feel even a 
pen-blot like a wound, would not the boy go out from such sur- 
roundings, better fitted by reason of them, for any of the industrial 
arts? 

Shall I say anything of those long brick factories of recitations 
which belong to a later period of education ? Will not the kindest 
patrons of those institutions admit that they must suggest some- 
what straggling and cubic notions of elegant architecture? And 
may we not possibly find, in the contrast afforded in this respect 
between the universities of the Old World and the New, a partial 
reason for that quicker taste and finer sense of the elegancies of 
letters which belong to the student of Oxford and of Cambridge ? 
Is there not something in those brown walls by the Isis, hoary with 
age and heavy with classic sculpture, and in those rich, shaded 
walks along the borders of the Cam, which chimes with the mellow 
tones of old learning; which brings freshly down to our day the 
sanctity of academic groves, and which quickens and nourishes a 
sense of that elegance which sublimed the tread of the Grecian bus- 
kin, and which hung its votive garlands over every door of science? 

If American education were somewhat mollified (and it is 
happily growing toward it day by day) by a recognition of taste, by 
admission that there were such matters as refinement and beauty, 
it would bear its story through all the ranks of our workers, 
whether in the arts, or the field. And the result could be traced in 
every country homestead, in every piece of mechanism, and even 
in the manners of the man. 

Observe that I have dwelt upon the merely practical issues 
which might flow from a fuller development of our perceptions of 
beauty in connection with education, and have laid no stress upon 
that enlargement of faculties which waits upon the search for ele- 
gance. That eye which in youth is quick to perceive beauty is 
quick also to perceive truth. . . . l 

1 See also one of his early opinions on this same subject in the New Englander, 
1.207, April 1843. 

318 



THE GOSPEL OF BEAUTY 

The beauty of architecture which he so zealously advo- 
cated has come to Yale. Over the forward-looking youth of 
the old college, the towers of Harkness Memorial Quadrangle 
now keep watch. The silent influence of sculptured face and 
storied line is felt at every archway. Within the courts of 
this sublime achievement of architecture the eyes of youth, 
quickened to a perception of beauty, may indeed be quick- 
ened to a perception of truth. It is pleasant to record that 
one of the Branford Court entries of the Harkness Quadran- 
gle has been named in honor of Mr. Mitchell. It is a fitting 
tribute not alone to his authorship but even more to his 
recognition and advocacy of the meaning and the influence 
of great architecture. His alma mater has done well thus 
to associate his name with her greatest triumph in the 
realm of the beautiful. 

Into commerce and the mechanic arts, likewise, Mr. 
Mitchell believed it possible to infuse the sentiment of beau- 
ty. "Taste," he wrote, "gives interludes to the merchant's 
life of toil. It gives him holiday with his flowers, his family, 
his library. It softens his habit, it mellows his talk, it 
adorns his home with objects that make home cherished. 
It changes his country retreat from a fashionable prison- 
house into a hearty and honest enjoyment. It stocks his 
bookshelves with what throws grace upon his calling. It 
fits him to wear with dignity and ease such civic employment 
as his wealth may bestow upon him." With regard to the 
mechanic arts he felt that "their perfection waits only upon 
hands guided by a love and a study of the beautiful." 

The ugliness, the glaring utilitarianism of most American 
agricultural life was painful to him. "I do not quite under- 
stand," he wrote, "why the American character, which has 
shown such wonderful aptitude for thrift in other directions, 

319 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

should have shown so little in the direction of agricul- 
ture. . . . The American is not illiberal by nature; a thou- 
sand proofs lie to the contrary; but by an unfortunate tradi- 
tional belief he is disposed to count the land only a rigorous 
step-dame from which all possible benefit is to be wrested, 
and the least possible return made." * 

He recognized that such impoverishment of the land came 
as a result of wrong values; that it was an evidence of 
unimaginative greed and lack of refinement. He felt the 
American need of "culture to refine, and taste to appreciate"; 
he realized how much our newer, rawer civilization had to 
learn from the older civilization of Europe. "Burke says 
somewhere with his wonderful improvisation of truth, 'To 
make our country loved, our country ought to be lovely/" 
he told the public. "And what are we doing," he asked, 
"toward toning down the roughnesses of our landscape and 
giving to it that softness and those charms which are indica- 
tions of culture and feeling ? And here let me observe that 
true taste in this regard interferes in no way with economy 
or with farming thrift. The British agriculturist does not 
lessen his gains by the trimness of his hedges, nor the peas- 
ant spoil his day's work by breathing the fragrance of the 
mignonette at his door. Every farm-yard in the land may 
have its wealth of trees, every pasturage its clump of shade, 
every garden its trellised arbor, every rivulet from the hills 
its offices of rural economy to fulfill." 

It was partly to demonstrate the soundness of this doc- 
trine that Mr. Mitchell created Edgewood. He liked such 
concrete way of teaching. "Good example," he was fond 
of insisting, "will do very much in way of reform — more 
in most instances than any zeal of impeachment." 2 And so 

1 Out-of-Town Places, 14. 2 Out-of-Town Places, 102. 

320 



! 



THE GOSPEL OF BEAUTY 

through many years Edgewood continued, in the words of 
Mr. Arthur Reed Kimball, "to embody fidelity to an ideal 
in a way perhaps unmatched by any other home in America." 
During the sixties Mr. Mitchell constructed a roadway along 
the ridge behind the house as a means of giving freer access 
to his grounds, and regularly on Wednesdays and Saturdays 
his gates were open to the public. The pilgrims who came 
to Edgewood departed with quickened senses, and helped to 
disseminate still more widely the far-reaching influence of 
Mr. Mitchell's gospel of beauty. 

He was frequently told that the public was not yet ready 
to adopt his teaching, and it is doubtless true that he often 
felt the loneliness of the pioneer. Apathy often disappointed, 
it never discouraged, him. "I know I am writing in advance 
of the current practice in these respects," he once said; "but 
I am equally sure that I am not writing in advance of the 
current practice fifty years hence, if only the schools are kept 
open. The reputation of a town for order, for neatness, for 
liberality, or taste is even now worth something, and it is 
coming to be worth more, year by year." l He clearly 
realized that a part of his work was to convince the public 
of the practicability of carrying out his teaching, to assure 
them that it was not in violation of practical aims. "I have 
dwelt upon this point," he wrote in 1867, "because I love to 
believe and to teach that in these respects true taste and true 
economy are accordant, and that the graces of life, as well as 
the profits, may be kept in view by every ruralist, whether 
farmer or amateur." 2 By example and by word he strove to 
impress upon his countrymen the fact that taste and economy 
harmonize. He was a witness to the truth, a witness who 
never despaired of ultimate triumph. "I feel sure," he 

1 Out-of-Town Places, 161-162. a Out-of-Town Places, 188. 

321 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

wrote in closing the articles which went to make up Out-of- 
Town Places, "I feel sure that the highest beauty of land- 
scape will ultimately bring no loss; and I forecast confidently 
the time — perhaps a century hence — when all the beauties 
and all the economies and all the humanities will be in 
leash." » 

Mr. Mitchell believed just as firmly that the sentiment of 
beauty should underlie all our social development. Indeed, 
he always held that a refined taste counted for much more 
than a knowledge of conventions. "Taste and refinement 
more than anything besides make the gentleman," he main- 
tained. "Indeed, essential politeness is nothing more than 
kindness joined to grace. To be gentle without being kind, 
involves a paradox. But kindness to be known must have 
expression. It may have rude expression; but if it have 
beautiful expression, what we call manner is perfected." 

It can readily be seen that here was a man for whom the 
sentiment of beauty was an ever-present ideal. In this 
respect he was a Grecian, and it is not extravagant to say 
that the work which he accomplished in harmony with such 
ideal is a part of the immortality of perfection. I cannot do 
better than to close with words of his own: "With the Greeks 
the sentiment of beauty was a constantly pervading impulse, 
coloring their whole life and action. Streets, houses, mar- 
bles, gardens, speech, and manner were all blazing with 
it. . . . The spirit of beauty, when once it has entered so 
thoroughly into the life of a nation as it did into the life of 
those great Greeks, can never die. Death is not a word that 
reaches it." 

1 Out-of-Town Places, 323. 



322 



XVI 

QUIET HEROISM 

We are our own masters, and we can battle just as stoutly 
against the world as we do choose. — D. G. M. in note-book, 
Portland, Maine, September 18th, 1852. 

After Mr. Mitchell's retirement to Edgewood, newspapers 
and magazines frequently spoke of him as living in "lettered 
ease," and it was doubtless popularly believed that Ik Mar- 
vel was dreaming out an ideal existence far from the cares 
and anxieties of the busy world. The legend was pretty and 
idyllic, but altogether untrue. Lettered ease, Mr. Mitchell 
never knew. To be sure, Edgewood was a place of beauty 
and of quiet — increasingly so with each year; but it was on 
earth, and not in heaven; very often the wavering shadows of 
care fell athwart its quietude, and remained long. Indeed, 
the whole course of Mr. Mitchell's life demanded high cour- 
age. Confronted from his earliest years by bodily weak- 
nesses, and by sorrows which touched him closely, he had 
nevertheless shown no lack of resolution and fortitude. 
Against all obstacles he had struggled to a reasonable 
strength of body, and had won for himself a home and a posi- 
tion in the world. Now, by an unexpected turn of fortune, 
he found himself confronted by a task that was for years to 
try his whole strength. His quiet and persistent struggle to 
pay for Edgewood, and to maintain it for the purposes he had 
in mind, constitutes what was perhaps the greatest heroism 
of his long life. The experience developed in the entire 
Mitchell family the finest qualities of character; under the 

3*3 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

necessities laid upon them each one gained in strength of will 
and temper of mind. A part of the meaning of Edgewood 
arises from the fact that it was a home of serious intent, 
straightforward purpose, active endeavor, and earnest living. 
The purchase of the original 200-acre tract of Edge- 
wood involved Mr. Mitchell in a first debt. The agricul- 
tural successes of the first years brought a desire for in- 
creased acreage; indeed, for a time Mr. Mitchell developed 
a pronounced case of land-fever, in consequence of which the 
area of Edgewood was enlarged to almost 360 acres. Of 
course these additional purchases meant increased debt. 
Once, in order to insure possession of a contiguous tract of 
land, Mrs. Mitchell sold the diamonds which formed a part 
of her dowry. For a time all went well. With the Civil War, 
however, came added financial burdens. Costs of develop- 
ment and repair were meanwhile steadily growing. Within 
a dozen years, the old homestead, in a state of uncertain re- 
pair even in 1855, was falling into decay. Moreover, it had 
become entirely inadequate to the accommodation of the 
rapidly increasing family. The new Edgewood — the present 
homestead — intended as it was for a large family, was com- 
pleted in 1872, at a cost probably exceeding $20,000. It 
necessitated, of course, a proportionate operating expense. 
At the time of these additional purchases of land, and the 
building of the new home, a pronounced real-estate and 
building activity in New Haven led Mr. Mitchell to antici- 
pate a large increase in the value of his holdings. He thought 
it certain that in consequence of the city's extension to the 
westward he would realize a goodly sum from that portion 
of his land which lies east of what is now Forest Street. 
All of his anticipations failed of immediate realization. The 
development of New Haven for the time was in another 

324 



QUIET HEROISM 

direction. The severe financial depression of the seventies 
came on, and left him burdened with a debt of over $50,000. 
It was a staggering blow for a man of his health and tem- 
perament. 

Almost immediately after the purchase of Edgewood in 
1855 Mr. Mitchell attacked the problem of debt. He lec- 
tured on history, literature, art, and agriculture; he wrote for 
newspapers and magazines; he did editorial work on the 
Atlantic Almanac; he turned actively to landscape-garden- 
ing; and all the time pushed the productive capacity of 
his farmlands to the utmost. Once, in 1868, when he was 
called to the editorship of Hearth and Home at a salary 
of #5,000 a year, it seemed to him that a way out had 
opened. During the two years of his editorial work he 
usually spent at least three days of each week in New York 
City. Railway travel necessitated leaving New Haven at 
5.30 in the morning, and reaching Edgewood late at night. 
It was strenuous work for a man never strong. Even this 
difficult and wearing enterprise ended with the financial dis- 
aster which overtook the publishers. When the business de- 
pression of the seventies came on, he once more set himself 
resolutely to the heavy work of reducing a vastly increased 
burden of debt. 

To form a proper conception of Mr. Mitchell's character 
it is necessary to remember the conditions of temperament 
and health and outward circumstance against which he 
struggled. We need to keep in mind his sensitive, often 
moody, nature — now depressed by illness, again shaken by 
severe neuralgic headaches. The public knew nothing of all 
this. Only the members of his own family, and a few inti- 
mate friends, knew the difficulties which beset him. Inas- 
much as he accomplished his life-work in defiance of physical 

3*S 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

weaknesses, they must not be overemphasized. The por- 
trait would not be faithful, however, without a proper blend- 
ing of these shadows. 

With the exception of his wife, to no one did Mr. Mitchell 
reveal more of his inner feeling than to W. H. Huntington. 
Their wide separation during many years served only to in- 
crease their friendship, and gave occasion for the frequent 
writing of long letters. I shall give first a portion of one of 
Mr. Mitchell's letters dated August 20th, 1858: 

If you had wife and children, and farm, and cows, and pigs, and 
chickens, and hay to cut, and corn to hoe, and muck to dig, and 
bills to pay (for family groceries), you would understand why I 
have not answered sooner. Of course you haven't any of these 
things on your hands, or thoughts, and of course you are as 
recreant and gleeful as an oldish boy of six or seven and thirty can 
be. Of course you have made a mistake in not having some of 
these cares on your thought; and of course you know it, and admit 
it; and of course you don't mean to mend; and of course you won't; 
and of course you know all this; of course you do. 

But isn't it odd how life leans sharply toward the ending after 
five and thirty? Did it ever occur to you ? It makes me scratch 
my head very nervously sometimes; not that any great desire of 
doubling life is entertained — very far from it; but the oppressive 
weight of the superficialities and good-for-nothingnesses which 
have given it body so far, is hard to bear. I am going to make 
a fairish potato crop this year — quite so; what then? It seems 
as if thirty and odd years of suns and showers, glorious noons 
and all sorts of moonlight and that kind of thing, ought to work 
out something more than power, and satisfaction, and content, in 
the matter of a fairish potato crop. 

I am a little ailing to-night, as you see; but shan't stave out the 
sickly colors that come first to hand, in painting a letter for you. 

I haven't accomplished much pen-ways since you left; partly 

326 






QUIET HEROISM 

because such agreeable and altogether fascinating inertium belongs 
to this country quiet; partly because the villainously blue times 
have not favored any speculative literary projects; partly because 
things literary are inch by inch losing their charms for me; partly 
because (an old reason with you) I don't want to. 

Then again living outside of cities, and outside the clash that 
comes of every day's outlook and listening to the world's din, dis- 
poses a man to silence. Long and far-off listening makes one 
apter to listen than to talk; and you know here in the country 
talking chances are rare, I mean the chances that test a man, 
and summon his rusty capabilities, and oil them and brighten 
them. . . . 

... I should like to give you some book commissions, but am 
too poor. My pay to the panic has been about $4,000 lost cleanly, 
and to make it worse, all by my own folly. 

If there was any one thing which Mr. Mitchell grew to 
dislike more than another it was public lecturing. Notwith- 
standing his aversion to the work, it was generally his custom 
until the outbreak of the Civil War to give a portion of the 
winter months to extended lecture tours. A letter written 
to Mrs. Mitchell from Cincinnati, Ohio, December 13th, 
1859, helps us to understand his feeling, and to appreciate 
some of the difficulties under which he labored: 

I didn't know how dependent I was upon you . . . till I came 
so far away from you, or allowed you to go so far away from me. 
If it were not for the continual excitement of change, and the con- 
stant fight against all the vexations of travel here in this raw, 
crude, half-civilized West, I should grow terribly blue. 

To-day I am from Columbus, Ohio, where I lectured last night 
to a crowded, and upon the whole, most sympathetic, house I have 
had yet. . . . There, as also at Dayton, where I lectured to an 
/^-sympathetic audience the night previous, the papers report my 

327 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

audience as " the most crowded of the season. " The great trouble 
is with the too quiet and subdued character of the lecture. Western 
taste; that is to say, the mass of it, craves something more high 
jalutin. The best people, however, and cultivated ones, are, I am 
sure, satisfied. . . . 

I suppose I have told you all about my Cincinnati lecture; how 
it was crowded; how a good many in the far part did not hear me. 
Indeed, my voice has suffered from old throat trouble first begun 
in New York; and though last night my voice was strong enough 
again, yet the cold has settled into a somewhat worrisome cough, 
which if I do not break into more manageable condition by my 
Monday's lecture at Chillicothe, I shall be compelled to forego 
my western appointments. Have I told you of these? Chicago, 
Milwaukee, Madison, Kenosha, Lafayette, St. Louis, besides De- 
troit, Michigan University, New Albany, Louisville, Indianapolis, 
Springfield, Evansville, Zanesville — all of which latter I have been 
compelled to decline on the score of time. If I were well fully, and 
could fill all these, it would be worth the doing; but 

[E]ven now, if this cold keeps on me, I may not get to Chicago; 
if so, all the worse, and we must struggle against the fates and 
January bills a little longer. ... If I do not go West, I shall 
start directly for New Haven, make provision against January 
accounts as I best can, and sail for Charleston to join you. ... I 
trust, however, I may be able to struggle through. . . . How 
unfortunate that just at this time of my greatest need of strength, 
I should have my only hard cold these two years. Well, as you 
would say, we mustn't quarrel with Providence. . . . 

I regret over and over not having brought my grandiloquent and 
absurd lecture about Beauty. It would have hit Western taste in 
the eye, and I should have succeeded, and been ashamed of myself 
for doing it. . . . 

I never learned to love so much as now the quiet of a country 
home, and I long for it every hour I am absent, or you are absent. 
It is a\\ fudge about my being out of place, or losing place there. 

328 



QUIET HEROISM 

The truth is I put a lower and lower estimate upon reputation 
every hour I live, and have I not reason? That lecture on Beauty, 
so bombastic and sophomoric that I should have been ashamed to 
print it with my name, used to call down twice the applause and 
content that this labored and delicately wrought one on Venice 
does. I find that all the most artfully worked allusions, and most 
carefully worded analogies, and historic comparisons fall absolutely 
still-born, while my old rodomontade of five years ago was prodig- 
ious. Is this not enough to make one undervalue, or rather not 
value at all, the puff of popular favor? In very truth, if it were 
not to pay off the farm debts, I do not believe I would ever put 
pen to paper again in the world. 

You see that this [is] in blue vein, and you will quarrel with it. 
I expect that. But you will half-acquiesce when I tell you that I 
enjoy infinitely more a week with you and the children than all the 
lecture applause that could be crowded into a twelvemonth. . . . 

Frequently the struggle seemed interminable, and all 
ways to final victory closed. A portion of a letter to Hunt- 
ington reveals the depths from which Mr. Mitchell some- 
times had to rise: 

I am shabby, I know; I am careless, I know; I ought to have 
answered your last, long ago, I know. But what then ? We both 
fail to do so many things we ought to do, that we will lump to- 
gether our sins of omission, and cry to the wall. I am just at this 
time, 2d January '6y, and for two weeks last past, suffering from 
the severest, and most unyielding, and most devilish fit of the blues 
which ever before oppressed me; so I warn you fairly, look for the 
blueness tingeing every edge of this sheet ! It is a shame, I know 
and confess to myself when I hear those little feet pattering up and 
down the stairs, and when the rosy faces come setting themselves 
into door-cracks, as innocents look through bars at wild beasts in 
the menageries. But what then? The mere consciousness of the 
foulness of the thing makes it hang more heavily. I sometimes 

329 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

think I have made a grand mistake in fronting this country isola- 
tion as I have done, and in trying to brave it down; for in it lies 
much of the secret of the blueness. Sometimes the hills, and trees, 
and coppices, and walks that have enamored, and do still so enamor 
me, seem only a devil's net-work against which I kick and struggle 
vainly, and they leashing me all the more surely. 

By 1868, it seemed to Mr. Mitchell that he must relin- 
quish Edgewood. "The truth is," he informed Huntington, 
"I can't keep it up now with any decency; it is too big for 
me, without better manager than I am in the way of securing. 
It has been a dearish old place, and I should hate to say a 
quittance; but fear it must be." His fear, however, was not 
realized. With 1869 came a prospect of better things. 
Three years later the new homestead was built. The intense 
application of the past was, however, now telling upon him 
with each year. "Life has turned wearily with me since the 
fifty is marked," he confided to Huntington in 1872, "and a 
great depression has come over me by reason of fierce head- 
aches that have racked me fearfully. I hope you fight the 
years more courageously and hopefully." These sentences 
are nevertheless followed by suggestions of further books, 
and the first outlines of Old Story Tellers. "When shall we 
ever see you again?" he asks in closing. "It would lift 
away two years from my head to see you and talk with you. 
A new house I have just built (we being now in agony of re- 
moval, with the terrible dilapidation of the old library) will 
give you cover, whenever you will. But I never count on 
the happiness in the new that has belonged to the old." 

A few years later a period of business depression made 
matters still more difficult. Huntington and other friends 
came forward with offers of financial aid, but as usual Mr. 

33° 



QUIET HEROISM 

Mitchell hesitated to accept. On the 20th of November 
1876, he wrote to Huntington as follows: 

Of course it is easy, looking back, to see where my follies and 
unwisdom have come in — most of all in counting upon our high- 
tides of three years ago, when it seemed my land here would realize 
enough to keep me safe, and to build a house which, seeing that 
the old one was in tumble-down condition, would give roof enough 
to shelter us all; so I built — and larger than I should — and went in 
debt — and counted on sales to help me — and the dead time came 
and stranded me, with all sorts of taxes at their highest, and all 
chances of income at the lowest. With the hopefulness and quick 
blood which belonged to forty (ce.) 'twould not have been so un- 
bearable; but anxieties and sleeplessness at fifty-four set astir all 
the weakly and wayward currents in a man's brain, and with me 
have intensified the old neuralgic tendencies, and kept me lashed 
into a dreadfully barren unrest. I am trying to do what I can in 
lucid intervals; and wife and children through all, and in prospect 
of whatever may come, are most helpful and cheery and willingly 
disposed. It would do your heart good to see how thoughtful and 
kindly they are ! 

I have offered my whole place for sale at thirty to forty per 
cent, less than would have been counted a fair price three years 
ago; but there is not even an enquirer. . . . 

I hardly know what to say of your most kindly offer. In our 
straits, it tempts overmuch; yet I reluctate, seeing how far off 
may be repayment. But after all, necessities may force accep- 
tance, and if such come — and forced sales — I think there will be 
enough to pay up all debts, whatever may be left to us. . . . That 
break-down of the Hearth and Home, which I thought offered re- 
liable work in my line, was a fearful discouragement to me. Judd 
and original owners sank over $200,000 in it. 

Many other friends of Mr. Mitchell would have been glad 
to assist him, but an intense dislike of allowing others to 

33i 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

assume his burdens prevented him from accepting such aid. 
Almost alone he carried through the task until the members 
of his own household were in position to help. There could 
be no more eloquent testimony to the love and fortitude in- 
spired by a father and a mother than the manner in which 
every son and daughter of Edgewood — and I include those 
who came into the family by marriage — assisted in sav- 
ing the well-loved home. Nor must I fail to make mention 
of the generous help given by Mr. Mitchell's brother Alfred. 
I need not record in further detail the progress of the 
long struggle to final freedom from debt. It is enough to 
say that Mitchell confronted the task with all the courage 
and persistence of Sir Walter Scott. The public knew almost 
nothing of this chapter of his life. The following passage 
from a letter of November ioth, 1882, to his daughter Eliza- 
beth, who was then travelling with her uncle in England, re- 
veals something of the quiet resignation into which he grew: 
"I wish ... I could know what seat you held in the rail- 
road carriage on trip to London, and so have looked out with 
you at the ravishing things you will have seen. Isn't it 
a contrast with the Woodbridge roads ? Well, I had a dream 
once of making some little spot of New England just as green 
and neat and flower- ful, and just as fragrant with all the 
winningest of rusticities; but the dream broke long ago 
when the purse bottom dropped out, and my only hope now 
is that the heaven to which such badish people as I may go, 
will have its green fields, and roses, and oak trees, and pleas- 
ant driving places, and such visitors as you ! Don't spurn 
my theology, I pray you; for it grows out of my cheerfullest 
way of thinking of which there has not been overmuch since 
your going away." Only now and then was a sharp cry 
wrung from him. "I come by money so scantly nowadays," 

33* 



QUIET HEROISM 

he wrote to his publisher, Charles Scribner, August 16th, 
1889, "that I clutch at it with a sharpness that shames me. 
I hope for a country some day (to live in) where money isn't 
needed." His experience led him to deprecate borrowing. 
"Don't run in debt — no matter what your pay may be/' he 
wrote to his son Donald, April 5th, 1884. "Wear homespun, 
and eat corn-cake if necessary rather than run in debt. I 
tell you this with an earnestness that is sharpened by the 
torture I have felt for years. Don't plan to spend just your 
income; it is like trying to balance yourself on a fine wire. 
Plan always to have a little over to put to next year's, or next 
month's account." 

It is pleasant to know that after the long struggle Mr. 
Mitchell with mind at ease lived to enjoy Edgewood, and 
to rest in the assurance that it would pass on to his children. 
It is pleasing, also, to record that his judgment has been vin- 
dicated. New Haven has no more beautiful residential dis- 
trict than that which is now building on the plain below the 
shadows of Edgewood. And were the Master of Edgewood 
alive to-day, he could see the fruitage of his example in the 
charming and well-kept homes that cluster upon his old 
farmlands. He would doubtless feel that the difficult task 
was, after all, well worth performing; that the struggle did 
avail. 



333 



XVII 
HOME LIFE 

Poets and places beguile one to roam, 
Yet pleasantest paths lead evermore home ! 

— D. G. M. in letter to his daughter Harriet. 

Not bread, nor meat, nor wine, 
But fire on hearth, and cheer in grateful hearts 
Make home divine. 
— D. G. M's inscription for mahogany panel in the home o! 
his daughter, Mary Mitchell Ryerson. 

Mr. Mitchell's warmest affections centred in his home. 
To him the very word was one of the richest and most mean- 
ingful in the English language, one that quickened his mem- 
ory and inspired his hope. " From my soul I pity him whose 
soul does not leap at the mere mention of that name," he 
once wrote. As we are well aware, his love of home was not 
a quick-blossoming, transient affection; it was long-nurtured, 
deep-rooted, permanent. From the sorrows and broken 
hopes of childhood, from the wanderings and restlessness of 
early manhood, he turned always to a vision of home as the 
goal of earthly happiness. Always, too, he associated the 
home of his dreams with the songs of birds, the color and the 
perfume of flowers, and the shadows of great trees. For 
these he deliberately turned his back upon the city, and all 
that it had to offer of social distinction and popular applause. 

We have seen how he grew inevitably toward Edgewood. 
There, so far as earth permits, he realized his dreams. There, 
beyond any doubt, his virtues best grew. Edgewood be- 

334 



HOME LIFE 

came the retreat from which he could be lured seldom and 
only with difficulty. His love of home gradually weaned 
him from the world. "Some of my friends call me a re- 
cluse," he once said, "but I do not mean to be one." And 
yet he early recognized the loosening of other ties. "I love 
home and homely subjects," run the opening words of one of 
his lectures, "but I think you will understand me when I say 
that the very love I bear the subject is one which stands 
grievously in the way of that public life which alone fits a 
man to be a public talker." In comparison with a home all 
other things to a man of such nature were but loss. 

Edgewood was, indeed, the creation of a man who knew 
clearly just what he had in mind. Of the purposes which 
actuated the outdoor life, I have already written. Equally 
definite notions governed the finer issues of the life beneath 
the roof-tree. "Whatever house is to make a true home," 
Mr. Mitchell wrote, "must be lived in, and carry smack of 
hospitality all over." The Edgewood homesteads fulfilled 
this requirement. For seventeen years the original farm- 
house, a low, rambling structure distinguished by a restful 
coziness and an "old-fashioned humility," sheltered the 
family. This was the house which we must always associate 
with JVetDays and My Farm of Edgewood > the house in which 
all but three of the Mitchell children were born. Mr. 
Mitchell loved its air of old-fashioned ease and comfort, and 
with the greatest reluctance decided upon its removal. 1 
When he turned to building anew, he sought to perpetuate 
all its desirable features; and in consequence the present 
home, though larger, retains much of the atmosphere and 
many of the charming qualities of the old. 

I have spoken of Edgewood as a creation, and so it was, 

1 See his description of the old library window in My Farm of Edgewood , 333 _ 337* 

335 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

both indoors and out. For Mr. Mitchell, as I have taken 
care to observe, always worked deliberately. He thought of 
a home as a living organism, as a thing subject to growth and 
change, not as a thing finished once for all. 

The home and its apartments should not be treated as a dead 
thing, where we make best arrangement of its fittings and there 
leave it. It must grow in range and in expression with our necessi- 
ties, and diverging and developing tastes. The best of decorators 
cannot put that last finish which must come from home hands. It 
is a great canvas always on the easel before us — growing in its 
power to interest every day and year — never getting its last 
touches — never quite ready to be taken down and parted with. 
No home should so far out-top the tastes of its inmates that they 
cannot somewhere and somehow deck it with the record of their 
love and culture. It is an awful thing to live in a house where no 
new nail can be driven in the wall, and no tray of wild flowers, or 
of wood mosses, be set upon a window sill. 1 

For upward of fifty-four years Mr. Mitchell wrought at 
Edgewood in the spirit of the foregoing passage. The present 
homestead has all the atmosphere of a house that is to be 
lived in. It is not, and never was intended to be, a show- 
place. Its woodwork, having only the stain of natural 
color, never carried an appearance of newness and gloss. The 
windows, light and roomy, afford abundant space for flowers. 
Water-drops only add to the stains of age which are gradu- 
ally mellowing the colors of the wood. Within, the house 
everywhere suggests room, breadth, comfort. 

Almost a quarter of a century before the present home- 
stead was constructed, Ik Marvel was weaving his visions of 
the future; and this is the home of which he dreamed: 

1 Bound Together, 282. 
336 



HOME LIFE 

The cottage is no mock cottage, but a substantial, wide-spread- 
ing cottage with clustering gables and ample shade — such a cottage 
as they build upon the slopes of Devon. Vines clamber over it, 
and the stones show mossy through the interlacing climbers. 
There are low porches with cozy arm-chairs, and generous oriels 
fragrant with mignonette and the blue-blossoming violets. The 
I chimney-stacks rise high, and show clear against the heavy pine- 
| trees that ward off the blasts of winter. . . . Within the cottage 
the library is wainscoted with native oak; and my trusty gun hangs 
upon a branching pair of antlers. ... An old-fashioned mantel 
is above the brown stone jambs of the country fireplace, and along 
it are distributed records of travel. . . . Massive chairs stand 
here and there in tempting attitude; strewed over an oaken table 
in the middle are the uncut papers and volumes of the day; and 
upon a lion's skin stretched before the hearth is lying another 
Tray. 1 

Almost without the change of a word that description fits 
the Edgewood home. Few dreams have ever been realized 
so fully, or in such minute detail. The dream, in fact, was 
none other than the unfolding plan of the home-builder. 
Absorbed in the duties and the pleasures of such a home, 
j it is not strange that Mr. Mitchell was content to let the 
I world go its way. Soon after his retirement to Edgewood 
an old friend said of him that he was "the most married 
I man" she had ever known. There was truth in the remark. 
Much of the happiness and contentment of his life grew out 
of his fortunate marriage. Mrs. Mitchell was by nature 
hopeful and buoyant — a lover of human fellowships. She 
knew how to counteract her husband's moods of depression 
and melancholy. She knew, also, how to respect those sea- 
sons when he wished to be alone and undisturbed. She had 

1 Reveries of a Bachelor, 286-288. 

337 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

remarkable business ability, and administered the affairs of 
her large household with consummate skill. She identified 
herself whole-heartedly with the development of Edgewood, 
and bore without complaint what were undoubtedly for her 
very actual burdens of loneliness and isolation. Had he 
searched long and painstakingly he could scarcely have 
found a woman better suited to his nature. He had recog- 
nized almost at their first meeting the qualities which made 
her necessary to him, and he never ceased to pay tribute to 
them. "More than ever I miss you now, my dearest wife; 
more than ever, when the clouds come, and the rain keeps 
me indoors, I feel the want of you to drive away false humors, 
to quicken my courage, to cheer me, and to make me cling 
even to the vanities of life," he wrote on the 2d of June 1855. 
"I feel now, too, more than ever how much more to me you 
are, and always have been, than a hundred friends, or all 
the acquaintances in the world." Again, on the 14th of 
December 1859, he wrote in half-playful, half-serious mood 
to Mrs. Mitchell, who was then visiting her South Carolina 
home. After a reference to his wife's report that her sister, 
Susan Pringle, was charmed with the little Paris-born 
daughter, he continued: "It would be strange (here's fatherly 
vanity for you !) if she were not. I ache in heart when I 
think how blind, and mad, and selfish a world she must grow 
into; run off from us (as you did), wilt under some selfish, 
quarrelsome husband's humors (as you do), and bear it all 
with that sweet womanly devotion and doubled love (as you 
do)." The sentiments expressed in these letters only deep- 
ened with the years, as extracts from his letters given else- 
where in this biography, sufficiently emphasize. In 1883 
the graceful rededication of Reveries of a Bachelor — "To one 
at home in whom are met so many of the graces and the vir- 

338 




MARY FRANCES PRINGLE. 

After a daguerreotype taken in 1850. 



HOME LIFE 

tues of which as bachelor I dreamed" — confirmed them. 
Of all praise, he valued most highly that which came from 
his wife; and it must be said that she knew how to praise 
heartily and sincerely. "Here I am," she wrote from Chi- 
cago in 1892, "after a charming journey made much shorter 
by the re-reading of Dream Life, which I took to glance over, 
but read every word; and it all seemed heartier and truer 
and better than ever." It was in such ways that she en- 
couraged him and helped to banish the melancholy humors 
of his temperament. Hers was, indeed, a nature of sunshine 
and optimism. 

As a matter of fact, Edgewood, however shadowed at 
times by circumstance, was always and essentially a place of 
animation and cheer. Abounding life made it so. Mr. and 
Mrs. Mitchell became the parents of eleven children — seven 
girls and four boys — and in consequence their home was the 
centre of a large social activity which radiated a vital hearti- 
ness. 1 For years youth reigned at Edgewood. There was 
"a baby in the family" until well after 1875. ^ n t ^ le com ~ 
panionship of wife and children Mr. Mitchell found recom- 
pense for his renunciation of the world. In such a home it 
was impossible to be a recluse. The head of so large a family 
was in no danger of becoming unsocial. 

1 The roll of the children follows: 

Hesse Alston 1st, b. June 5th, 1854; d. Dec. 27th, 1861. 

Mary Pringle, b. Aug. 28th, 1855; married Edward L. Ryerson, Dec. 3d, 1879. 

Elizabeth Woodbridge, b. Dec. 26th, 1856. 

Pringle, b. Sept. 5th, 1858; married Kathrin Mower, June 23d, 1886; d. July 

2d, 1900. 
Susan Pringle, b. July 3d, i860; married James Mason Hoppin, Oct. 1st, 1895. 
Donald Grant, b. Dec. 9th, 1861; married Mary Dews Reese, Dec. 3d, 1889. 
Hesse Alston 2d, b. Sept. 14th, 1863. 

Rebecca Motte, b. Jan. 20th, 1865; married Walter T. Hart, June 3d, 1889. 
Harriet Williams, b. Jan. 20th, 1870. 
James Alfred, b. June 14th, 1871; d. Jan. 2d, 1892. 
Walter Louis, b. March nth, 1875; married Esther R. Buckner, June 2d, 1906. 

339 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

Throughout his life Mr. Mitchell was a lover of children, 

counting them 

better than all the ballads 
That ever were sung or said. 

"I never warmed toward a jewel, except it were a child," he 
wrote to his daughter Susan in 1 896. He was never unmind- 
ful of a child's feelings; never hard or indifferent in their 
presence; he was always eager to make them happy. His 
daughters have told me a delightful story of his old age. 
In 1907 the five-year-old daughter of a neighbor was kept at 
Edgewood during her mother's serious illness. Although en- 
feebled by his eighty-five years, Mr. Mitchell exerted him- 
self to entertain her. Nor had he forgotten the ways of 
childhood. Recalling how often promises to show them the 
richly colored illustrations of Costumes Frangais 1 had pre- 
vailed upon his own children "to be good," he took from the 
library shelves one of the four large volumes, and with the 
little girl upon his knee, amused her with stories about the 
attractive pictures. The true heart of the man was in that 
simple, kindly act. 

The memory of his own sorrowful childhood, with its 
brief season of unbroken home life, caused him to put all the 
more zeal into the making of a pleasant environment for his 
children. It seemed that he wished them to have a double 
portion of all of which he had been deprived. It was a part 
of his creed that to make a home loved, it ought to be lovely; 
and he was convinced that a home so made would become 
"the rallying point of the household affections through all 
time. No sea so distant but the memory of a cheery, sun- 
lit home-room, with its pictures on the wall, and its flame 
upon the hearth, shall haunt the voyager's thought; and the 

1 Published by A. Mifliez, Paris, 1835. 
340 



HOME LIFE 

flame upon the hearth, and the sunlit window, will pave a 
white path over the intervening waters, where tenderest fan- 
cies, like angels shall come and go." It was not a creed 
which he held lightly. "There is a deeper philosophy in 
this," he continued, "than may at first sight appear. Who 
shall tell us how many a breakdown of a wayward son is 
traceable to the cheerless aspect of his own home and fire- 
side ?" x In his opinion, the home was the true bulwark of a 
nation; and upon such belief he founded all his notions of 
child-training. 

Edgewood was, of course, an almost ideal home for chil- 
dren. On all sides the book of nature lay wide open before 
them. At the earliest dawn of consciousness beauty con- 
fronted and informed their spirits. The father was at once 
friend, companion, and teacher. They shared his walks and 
drives; they absorbed his enthusiasms. He instructed them 
in all country lore, teaching them the secrets of the shy, al- 
most invisible, life of the hedgerows and the coppices, and 
searching out for them the haunts of the most humble wild 
things. Under his guidance they came to know the trees, 
the flowers, and the birds, with a closeness of observation 
acquired only from such companionship. The wooded hills 
were enchanted regions which the boys peopled with knights, 
dragons, Indians, and pirates; and in which the girls followed 
the trail of the Faerie Queene. Joy and romance were in the 
very air they breathed. The whole expression of their life 
was natural and spontaneous. 

Such joyous freedom was not, however, without disci- 
pline; for Mr. Mitchell in dealing with youth remembered the 
Greek doctrine of nothing in excess. "Flowers and children 
are of near kin," he used to say, "and too much of restraint, 

1 My Farm of Edgewood, 102-103. 
341 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

or too much of forcing, or too much of display, ruins their 
chiefest charms." He sought, therefore, to balance the 
freedom and abandon of their outdoor life by a discipline not 
less firm and effective because it was informal and unob- 
trusive. Industry was inculcated by example more than by 
precept. As soon as a child was old enough to understand 
and enjoy, it was taught to perform little tasks as a part of 
the day's pleasure. Each child had its pets, its flowers, or 
its corner in the garden. There were no idlers at Edgewood. 
Likewise, the children came to know the beauty of simplicity 
in dress and in manners. Ostentation and vulgarity could 
not live in such an atmosphere. The silent example of 
both father and mother revealed how noble a thing is mastery 
of the spirit. Such discipline wrought its perfect work — 
that beautiful quietness and order which became a dis- 
tinguishing feature of the Mitchell home. 

Mr. Mitchell combined confidence in work with an equal 
confidence in the desirability of making education attractive. 
In his opinion, the virtues of Puritanism were not dependent 
upon the seventies of its old educational practice, and he 
sought earnestly to protect youth from the monotony which 
marred much of his early life. He believed that only the 
blundering stupidity of elders could quench the youthful 
desire to know. It was his custom to take advantage of a 
child's curiosity; to lure the eager mind from one conquest to 
another. By evening readings he inspired his children with 
a love of literature and history. He aroused their interest 
in language work by holding before them the hope of foreign 
travel. He secured practice in composition by encouraging 
them to write letters and to edit little newspapers. One copy 
of the Edgewood Times has been preserved — the work of 
James Alfred when ten years old. The heading of the paper 

342 



HOME LIFE 

was drawn by the father, and the "news" evidently prepared 
under his direction. There was in this play no feigning of 
enjoyment on the part of Mr. Mitchell; he delighted in these 
activities. His enthusiasm was contagious, and the children 
followed his leading gladly. 

He watched with quick, fatherly pride the development 
of each child, turning, as it would seem, with wistful fond- 
ness to the sons of his old age. Writing to his daughter 
Elizabeth on the ist of June 1883, in regard to the thirtieth 
anniversary of his marriage, he remarked: "Walter put his 
pocket-money together . . . and bought a clematis for your 
mother, we two going together ... for the purchase. He 
is a rare boy — that Walter; he and James as generous as the 
skies." He never failed to mark traits of developing char- 
acter, and knew well how to humor and direct the eager 
spirit of youth. In a letter of April 20th, 1888, to his daugh- 
ter Susan, occur the following sentences: "Walter is all agog 
with his high school entry, beginning with to-day, examina- 
tion. He's a bright boy, we think, and what's better, has 
the capacity for a good deal of dogged work. James has 
been figuring at the balls which close up the high school term, 
and is quite the leader of ton in our household. My authority 
in cravats has lapsed." 

As the young people grew toward manhood and woman- 
hood, Mr. Mitchell identified himself more and more closely 
with their interests and activities. He taught them to make 
much of holidays and birthday anniversaries, emphasizing 
the fact that little, inexpensive gifts could often carry with 
them more of suggestion and affectionate remembrance than 
gifts more ostentatious and costly. Often he would send to 
an absent child one of his own drawings of a favorite bit of 
Edgewood scenery, or of a family pet, or of whatever else 

343 . 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

he thought would kindle home memories and affections. Be- 
yond all else he was careful to write frequent and cheery 
letters to those who had gone out from the home circle to 
establish firesides of their own, and struggle to make a place 
for themselves in the world. Indeed, his practice in this 
respect was in keeping with a lifelong conviction. "Letter 
writing is a home office to cultivate," he always maintained. 
"Write letters, and you will find them all through life, de- 
lightful, airy windows opening out upon other spheres, and 
bringing sweet voices to your table and your hearth, giving 
new quality to home cheer and home talk by their contrasts, 
and opening with the postman's knock breezy corridors 
through which troops of friends may trip to give you greet- 
ing, and electrify you by spiritual contact." No child of 
his but had abundant reason to feel thankful for such teach- 
ing and such practice. On many occasions joys were height- 
ened, gloom was dispelled, and sorrows were alleviated by the 
letters which the father seemed never too busy, too weary, or 
too old to write. 

He lived to become the companion of a merry group of 
grandchildren. With them he roamed again the Edgewood 
ways, and taught once more to eager youth the secrets of the 
outdoor world. In the companionship of little children he 
kept his spirit bright and his senses alert. For many years 
the Ryerson children journeyed from Chicago to spend their 
summers at Edgewood. In the presence of their grandfather 
they came to know the beauty and the wisdom of a quiet, 
simple life. To-day they hold the memories of Edgewood as 
among the richest of their lives, and count the influence of 
their grandfather's life as one of the most potent forces in the 
shaping of their character. Younger than the Ryersons were 
the Hart grandchildren, and the sons and daughters of Don- 

344 



HOME LIFE 

aid G. Mitchell, Jr., who were also privileged for a time to 
know their grandfather and to experience the warmth of his 
affection for children. He often entertained them at Edge- 
wood. As soon as they were old enough to write, he began to 
exchange letters with them. He understood that most diffi- 
cult art of writing in a manner that will at once attract and 
uplift a child. "That was a jolly fine letter you sent me 
about the ice-cave, and the Cobble Hill!" he wrote to the 
nine-year-old Philip Hart, July 15th, 1903. "And did you 
see any bear tracks, or hear any growling ? They tell me you 
have grown stouter than ever; and that you have grown good, 
too — which is much better; and that you look out for the 
enjoyment of other boys and girls, as well as your own — 
which is one of the best ways of growing good, and of making 
friends!" 

He had the Scotch love for home and kindred, and as he 
grew older perhaps regretted those currents of American life 
which carry children far from the scenes of their youth. He 
had a strong affection for ancestral place. To his son Don- 
ald he wrote, December 29th, 1905: "I am glad to see that 
Don 3d has taken his initiatory drive into the Salem wilds 
. . . and hope he will come to love familiarity with Salem 
scenes and people. Glad that you have found the way to 
the old Shaw house, and its gardens. 1 Cousin Jane is a good, 
kindly person, and I am sure will welcome your children's 
visitations to the old summer house, about which some of my 
pleasantest boyish recollections (1834-38) cluster. I like 
to think of your boy growing up in sight of the same old 
scenes." Long before (September 1888) he had written to 
his daughter Elizabeth: "I'm glad youVe been to Salem. 
My heart warms to anybody who will make a pilgrimage 

1 Now the home of the New London Historical Society. 

345 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

there. ... I can't quite explain my feeling for that valley 
out in the wilds. ... I wouldn't like to live there, but 
there's never a summer breeze can blow up the valley and 
the brook (of which I get any hearing at all) but it's musical 
to me. I had some good times there at a very impressiona- 
ble age; and then the 'ancestral' twang about it, coming from 
the white house on the hill, and the tomb-stones, sharpens the 
'good old times' feeling, and clinches it." In quite the same 
spirit is the dedication to the young Ryersons of the second 
volume of American Lands and Letters (1899): "To the little 
group of grandchildren born and bred upon the shores of that 
great lake where they build cities and burn them, and build 
exhibition palaces which outshine all exhibits, I dedicate this 
second volume of American talks, trusting it may find a kind- 
ly reading in their hustling western world, and spur them to 
keep alive that trail of home journeyings into these eastern 
quietudes under the trees which we gray heads love." 

Mr. Mitchell had, in fact, so identified himself with the 
spirit of rural Connecticut that a subtle sympathy existed 
between him and the very soil from which he drew suste- 
nance. He was rooted as deep among "eastern quietudes" 
as were the trees which shaded his roof. He had found con- 
tentment. For him Edgewood symbolized peace, comfort, 
seclusion. There he could indulge his idiosyncrasies; there 
he could be himself. To understand him aright, we must 
know something of his private home life. 

Edgewood ministered to Mr. Mitchell's passion for soli- 
tude. At first sight, he had been strongly attracted to the 
farm by its comparative isolation. Behind his hedges he 
felt that unobserved he could go his own way in peace, and 
steep his soul in quiet. Even in such a home, however, he 
craved further seclusion, and knew seasons when he found it 

34 6 



HOME LIFE 

necessary to withdraw from the immediate presence of his 
family. At such times the library was his sure retreat. 
There, among his books, and in communion with his own 
spirit, he was accustomed to remain until he had "consumed 
his smoke/' overcome the melancholy that oppressed him, 
and strengthened himself for fresh contact with people. 
When he built the new house he planned the library for quiet 
and seclusion, taking especial care to arrange in such way as 
to avoid callers when he felt so inclined. Through a window 
looking out upon the front walk and the main entrance of 
Edgewood he could see callers before they reached the house. 
He even planned for those emergencies when a ring of the 
door-bell surprised him. The entrance to the library is 
around the right corner of the long hallway. Another li- 
brary door gives access to a side exit opening upon a walk 
which leads to the hill at the rear. Such arrangement made 
it possible for him to leave the library before his presence 
there could be ascertained. Many a time his children were 
amused to hear the side-door close even before the bell rang. 
They knew that a caller was coming, and that their father 
was on his way to the hill to wander under the trees until the 
visitor had departed. 

During Mr. Mitchell's life his library remained almost 
exactly as he described it in 1876: 

The walls are finished roughly with ordinary mortar floated orT 
and colored a dark red. The cornice is of pine, with a beading of 
black walnut, extending around upon the book-shelves as well as 
upon portions of the wall. For economy of space, the book-shelves 
reach to ceiling, and are also established in either blank of chimney- 
breast which extends into room. I find these last specially con- 
venient, and their position has enabled me to give greater apparent 
breadth to chimney and greater actual breadth to mantel-piece. 

347 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

The floor has a border of yellow pine and black walnut, mitred 
at angles, almost two feet wide. The enclosed space, floored with 
ordinary white pine, is covered with English Brussels carpet of a 
simple geometric pattern, quite small, the colors being mainly 
brown or fawn-color with bits of black, white, or yellow. The 
carpet has a border of same predominating color, and broad band 
of green. An old Turkey rug is before the fire-place. 

The library of 2,500 to 3,000 volumes, is quite miscellaneous, 
being fullest in mediaeval history, encyclopaedias and dictionaries, 
and works relating to art and agriculture. The ceiling is of bald 
gray mortar, only because I cannot afford to decorate it. The 
wood-work is almost entirely of white pine, to which effect has 
been given by variety of stain (in no case obscuring the grain of 
wood), by bits of tile, and by sparse use of paper-hanging. If I 
had not so many windows, I should have given the walls a lighter 
tint; and if I had not so little space, I should not have carried the 
bookshelves to the ceiling; in short, if I could have spent more 
money, I would have made a more noticeable room. 1 

During the forenoon the library, which faces the east, is 
filled with sunlight. The large eastern windows look out 
upon the flowers, the trees, the lawn, and the hedges which 
surround Edgewood, and the spires of New Haven rising in 
the distance. Between the windows is a rustic bracket in 
which are small busts of Gutenberg, Shakespeare, and Vol- 
taire, the memorials of European wanderings. In Mr. 
Mitchell's day vines clambered over this casement-bracket, 
and two large boxes of flowers occupied the windows. These 
boxes bore favorite quotations from Shakespeare's Cymbe- 
line: the one, "Fairest flowers whilst summer lasts"; the 
other, "Furr'd moss besides, when flowers are none." As he 
sat within, Mr. Mitchell could look about him with the pride 

1 The Book of American Interiors. By Charles Wyllys Elliott, pp. 76-79. 

348 



HOME LIFE 

of a creator; for all was the product of his brain. He knew 
every book. He had chosen each picture, each bit of bric-a- 
brac, and loved the wealth of suggestion surrounding each. 
Every summer day a vase of rare design and interesting his- 
tory held a new flower — the trophy of a morning walk. 
Throughout the winter the windows were ablaze with favor- 
ite flowers. The whole room was a treasury of beauty, of 
wisdom, and of memory. 

As soon as the sun crossed the meridian the shadows be- 
gan to gather within the library. "Edgewood has no sun- 
set," a visitor once ventured to remark to Mr. Mitchell. 
"No, but it has a sunrise. Isn't that enough ?" he replied 
rather sharply; and his reply was revealing. For him, as we 
know, sunshine and gloom followed close upon each other, 
and it is doubtless true that he loved neither one nor the 
other overmuch; but rather loved the alternation of both. 
A sun-filled room brought cheer to a morning of work; a 
shadow-haunted room brought reveries and dreams to long 
afternoons and evenings. When the time for fires came he 
found the shadowed afternoons especially attractive. The 
play of the firelight on the walls and over the books awak- 
ened fancies that he would not have exchanged for kingdoms. 
He could not explain the charm which a fireplace exercised 
upon him; he could only enjoy it. A wood-fire, an open 
hearth, a cheery blaze, flickering shadows, dreams — these he 
loved; these he would not forego. At Edgewood there was 
abundance of timber, and the wood-shed was always filled. 
"The days of wood-fires are not utterly gone; as long as I 
live, they never will be gone," he once declared. 1 

Now and then a visitor was privileged to sit with Mr. 
Mitchell in the light of his open fire, and to catch something 

1 My Farm of Edgewood, EI. 
349 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

of his spirit's fineness. "I am living a quiet life, one might 
call it a life of seclusion," he once confided to a caller. "My 
companions at present are the open grate, the embers, the 
birch, which does not snap sparks on the rug, contentment of 
mind and body." One was not likely ever to forget the play 
of the firelight over Mr. Mitchell's features, nor the warm 
rose-tint with which it suffused his snow-white hair. From 
his countenance nobility and benevolence shone out clearly. 
"It is such a face," a visitor once remarked, "as one's fancy 
ascribes to that good man, the Bishop of D — in Les Misera- 
blesr 

I have already called attention to the fact that when 
awake Mr. Mitchell was never idle. Among the hobbies 
with which he occupied himself, the manufacture of rustic 
woodwork, map-making, and drawing in colors were chief. 
There are at Edgewood rustic picture-frames, clocks, cab- 
inets, canes, and ornaments, many of which he wrought 
out when confined to his bed with illness. He strove to 
teach his children to recognize the kinds of wood best suited 
to rustic work, and often sent them on trial errands to gather 
material. At such times, any display of ignorance on their 
part quickly aroused his impatience. "What!" he once 
exclaimed, "none of you know bass-wood! After all my 
teaching, is it possible that a child of mine does not know 
bass?" Map-making was one of his greatest delights, and 
he always expressed the belief that in him a good cartog- 
rapher was lost to the world for lack of early and skilled 
instruction in the art. Once when reading Ruskin's asser- 
tion in Time and Tide that "every youth in the state should 
learn to do something finely and thoroughly with his hand," 
Mr. Mitchell made the regretful annotation, "I might have 
been taught to make maps !" On his library door there yet 

35o 



HOME LIFE 

hangs a specimen of his handiwork in cartography — a large 
map of Edgewood and the surrounding country, upon which 
are located the minutest features of the landscape, including 
even the places where mushrooms flourish best. Although 
painting ministered to his delight in form and color, he never 
valued his accomplishment in it so highly as that in his other 
hobbies. Many of his drawings in color are preserved at 
Edgewood, and two of his water-color sketches are repro- 
duced in Chronicles of a Connecticut Farm. 

Pets abounded at Edgewood. The household was never 
without its favorite dog; cats found warm welcome there; 
and all the farm animals came to gentle and affectionate 
treatment. Mr. Mitchell doubtless learned to love most of 
all a horse which Mr. and Mrs. Ryerson gave him in 1890. 
No member of the family circle is likely ever to forget 
"Andy" and his clever ways. In a series of notes Mr. 
Mitchell has recorded something of his affection for this 
faithful companion: 

The other day we left him in East Haven for a night. It 
galled us to do it. Would he be well cared for? Would not some 
slattern or heedless groom offend his sensibilities ? Would he sleep 
well in a strange stall? Would he have good companionship over 
the stall partitions? Would the hay be smoky? Would his ra- 
tions be regular and fair? All this disturbed us. Why should it 
not? I gave him occasion to rub his nose on my shoulder before 
parting with him, patted him on the neck, and gave him a bonne 
bouche of a lump of sugar, which he crunched in a lively and grate- 
ful way as I came out of the stable-yard. 

Those baitings by the high road with which some of the more 
starched members of the family are disposed to quarrel, are not 
without their defences, their beguilements, and their essentially 
good philosophic and physiologic ends. For my own part, I have 

3S* 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

no liking for those long country rides or drives which do not permit 
of a "getting out" here and there for the plucking of this or that 
flower, for the random survey of this or that wood. It puts the last 
rural grace into a country ramble; it relieves of ennui; it breaks the 
monotony; it opens skyward and earthward loop-holes for pleasant 
disport. So, I am sure my good Andy has a relishy enjoyment of 
those little bites by the road-side — now of tall lucerne, now of a 
luscious mat of white clover, now of the speary, nodding heads of 
the twitch-grass (for which I observe he has always peculiar ap- 
petite), and again for a catch-all bite of wild wood-grass, five-fin- 
gers, young golden-rod, even bringing up the roots with their at- 
tached morsels of fragrant wood-soil, humus, silex, aluminum, and 
all the rest, which chemical multiple of condiments he consumes 
with a grateful click-clack of his jaws. 

Then came this finale. I do not know how the veterinary 
scientists would term it, or disguise it, in Latin; but there came 
indications — sometimes after sharp going, sometimes without 
apparent provoking cause — of a poor government of the muscular 
tissues, an occasional tremor in them running over flank and thigh, 
and at last one day an involuntary, spasmodic, uncontrollable back- 
ing . . . a crouching, uncanny shivering and shrinking of all hinder 
parts till he sunk flattened out upon the ground. 'T would seem 
shafts or breeching would all have given way. But they kept whole, 
and he, poor fellow, shamed and righted and ballasted as it were 
by that touch to mother earth, rose up with a great shiver of re- 
solve. ... [A few days later] we found him doubled up in his 
box quite stark and cold, with his head stretched out upon his 
knees as if asking relief. . . . And shall we ever see him, or recog- 
nize something that will seem identical with that gentle, intelligent 
eye of his, when this life is ended, and another, somewhere in other 
realms begun ? I can name a dozen men whom I have encountered 
within ten days past, who are not half so worthy of living again, 
and of renewing old acquaintanceships, as this gentle, swift, en- 
gaging Andy. 

35* 



HOME LIFE 

Readers of My Farm of Edgewood will recall that in the 
book Mr. Mitchell speaks 1 of " a class of men who gravitate to 
the country by a pure necessity of their nature," who "linger 
by florists* doors, drawn and held by a magnetism they can- 
not explain, and which they make no effort to resist. ... I 
think they are apt to be passionate lovers of only a few, and 
those the commonest flowers — flowers whose sweet home- 
names reach a key, at whose touch all their sympathies 
respond. They laugh at the florists' fondness for a well- 
rounded hollyhock, or a true petalled tulip, and admire as 
fondly the half-developed specimens, the careless growth of 
cast-away plants, or the accidental thrust of some misshapen 
bud or bulb." His friends scarcely need the further sentence, 
"I suspect I am to be ranked with these," to assure them that 
he is speaking of himself. 

No tyranny of fashion ever dictated the choice of flowers 
at Edgewood, or determined the system of planting. Mr. 
Mitchell's own tastes — his whimsies, if you will — governed 
these matters. "I sometimes wander through the elegant 
gardens of my town friends," he wrote, "fairly dazzled by all 
the splendor and the orderly ranks of beauties; but nine 
times in ten — if I do not guard my tongue with a prudent 
reticence, and allow my admiration to ooze out only in ex- 
clamations — I mortify the gardener by admiring some timid 
flower, which nestles under cover of the flaunting dahlias or 
peonies, and which proves to be only some dainty weed, or an 
antiquated plant, which the florists no longer catalogue. 
Everybody knows how ridiculous it is to admire a picture by 
an unknown artist; and I must confess to feeling the fear of a 
kindred ridicule, whenever I stroll through the gardens of an 
accomplished amateur. But I console myself with thinking 

^ee pp. 332-333 ff. 

3S3 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

that I have company in my mal-adroitness, and that there is 
a great crowd of people in the world, who admire spontane- 
ously what seems to be beautiful, without waiting for the 
story of its beauty. If I were an adept, I should doubtless, 
like other adepts, reserve my admiration exclusively for 
floral perfection; but I thank God that my eye is not as yet 
so bounded. The blazing daffodils, blue-bells, English cow- 
slips, and striped-grass, with which some painstaking woman 
in an up-country niche of home, spots her little door-yard in 
April, have won upon me before now to a tender recognition 
of the true mission of flowers, as no gorgeous parterre could 
do. With such heretical views, the reader will not be sur- 
prised if I have praises and a weakness for the commonest 
of flowers." l 

He counted it pure joy to search out the haunts of wild 
flowers. What he wrote of his brother Louis was equally 
true of himself. "He greeted every token of coming spring 
with glee; he delighted in watching the buds as they unfolded; 
over and over, I remember his loitering for hours in sunny 
May days under the near woods, exploring with his cane 
amongst the dead leaves for the anemones and the hepaticas. 
No gift was ever more acceptable to him than a handful of 
the first-blooming arbutus." 

It is in scattered and unexpected places that I like my children 
to ferret out the wild-flowers brought down from the woods — the 
frail columbine in its own cleft of rock — the wild-turnip, with its 
quaint green flower in some dark nook that is like its home in the 
forest — the maiden's-hair thriving in the moist shadow of rocks; 
and among these transplanted wild ones of the flower-fold, I like 
to drop such modest citizens of the tame country as a tuft of vio- 
lets, or a green phalanx of the bristling lilies of the valley. 

1 My Farm of Edgewood, 338-339. In the same volume read Mr. Mitchell's 
account of his purchasing a field-daisy in Paris, pp. 138-139. 

354 



HOME LIFE 

Year by year, as we loiter among them, after the flowering sea- 
son is over, we change their habitat^ from a shade that has grown too 
dense, to some summer bay of the coppices; and with the next year 
of bloom, the little ones come in with marvelous reports of lilies, 
where lilies were never seen before — or of fragrant violets, all in 
flower, upon the farthest skirt of the hill-side. It is very absurd, of 
course; but I think I enjoy this more — and the rare intelligence 
which the little ones bring in with their flashing, eager eyes — than 
if the most gentlemanly gardener from Thorburn's were to show a 
dahlia with petals as regular as if they were notched by the file of a 
sawyer. 1 

The frailty, the gentleness, and the unassuming beauty 
of certain wild flowers brought his soul into communion and 
harmony with God, and thus satisfied some deep need of his 
spirit. He, at least, never hesitated to associate his religion 
and his love of flowers. "Re[becca] and I took our sermon 
and services in the woods," he wrote to Elizabeth, April 
23d, 1 888, "and brought home five or six full-blown blood- 
roots, four nearly opened buds of dog-tooth violets (yellow), 
and a stock of brilliant hepaticas of all tints (I never saw 
them more beautiful)." Again, on the 14th of May 1888, he 
reported to Elizabeth the result of another Sunday flower- 
hunt. "We picked (Hesse and I) yesterday, polygola for 
first time; also columbines in full bloom, oceans of large 
anemones, and bird's-foot violets in greater profusion than I 
ever found them." 

His children tell me that in many cases personal associa- 
tions determined his choice of flowers; that he loved especially 
those with which he became acquainted in boyhood and 
youth. "Take it away ! Take it away !" he once cried out 
impatiently when a flower was brought to him. "I never 

1 My Farm of Edgewood, 341-342. 

355 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

knew it when I was a boy. It has no associations for me." 
And he waved it from him with a deprecatory motion of his 
hands. Miss Elizabeth Mitchell informs me that very often 
she was able to divert her father's mind from the deepest 
griefs by calling his attention to varieties of wild orchids 
which he had learned to love in his boyhood. 

Very early in his life among them, the people of New 
Haven came to understand something of Mr. Mitchell's 
modesty, but only the members of his family knew how genu- 
ine was this quality of his nature, and in how many ways it 
manifested itself. He seemed to have absorbed something 
of the shyness and humility of his favorite wild flowers. He 
always shrank from putting himself forward, and never 
ceased to have a dread of public performance. His wife 
came to early knowledge of this characteristic during their 
voyage to Europe in 1853 when he refused to respond to a 
request for an after-dinner speech on board the Arctic. 
Subsequent experience convinced her that he could not be 
lionized, and both she and the children were often amused by 
the shifts to which he was driven to escape public notice. His 
family enjoyed the report of his experience during his voyage 
to Europe on the City of Berlin in May 1878. "The concert," 
he wrote to Mrs. Mitchell on May nth, "is to come off to- 
night. They have been at me again to read something, to say 
something, to make some show. If none of them had known 
of my having written somewhat, I should have got off 
quietly and undisturbedly. It comes of writing Donald G., 
instead of Mr. Mitchell. Well, I shall get quit if I can, but 
I don't know how I shall be able to escape." A few hours 
later he continued: "Well, the concert came off, the salon 
jammed with 400 people, including sixty performers, and in 
the very middle of it, what does . . . the chairman [do but] 

3S& 



HOME LIFE 

break out in a gas-y jumble about a distinguished author on 
board — well known — charming style — etc., etc., and ended 
up by calling me out by both names. ... I was wedged in 
between an English lady and a German merchant, outside 
my usual place; but they spotted me, and I had to come out. 
I had a copy of Tennyson in my pocket, thinking if worst 
came I would get off by reading 'Lady Clara Vere de Vere,' 
and trying to fancy I was reading it to the children at home. 
So I began with apologizing for the impertinence of appear- 
ing at all in the midst of a concert, and ran on — better than 
I thought I could — complimenting the band, the ship, the 
captain, and finally Miss [Emma] Thursby [a well-known 
singer of that day], in a way that brought down the house. 
So I came off easily and without any reading at all." 

He was in Paris when he received the announcement that 
Yale had conferred upon him the LL.D. degree. On the 
1 2th of July 1878 he wrote to his wife: "Two days ago came 
Lizzy's announcement of the doctorate. Twas a very fool- 
ish thing for the College to do (begging their pardon), and 
all I can say in extenuation is, that they have frequently 
done as bad things. Don't you ever dare to write LL.D. in 
connection with my name ! Huntington and I have had a 
good laugh over it; and as evidence of kindly feeling, and 
testimony to general sobriety of conduct, it is pleasant." 

He disliked to hear reference to his own books, shrinking 
from mention of them as though he were pained. He always 
placed copies of his own volumes upon inconspicuous 
shelves of the library to the left of the fireplace chimney 
where the light was so poor as almost entirely to conceal them 
from sight. A similar feeling made him shrink from inter- 
views. He greeted a friend who once came to interview him 
with the remark: "Well, I am sorry to say I dread your call 

357 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

as much as I would that of a kindly disposed dentist." To a 
young woman who begged to see him that she might have the 
opportunity of "writing him up," he replied: "If you had 
asked permission to come into the Edgewood garden and 
pluck at your will the ripe raspberries (which are now lus- 
cious and abundant), I would have given you neighborly 
courtesy, and my heartiest permission. But — if you come 
with note-book and pencil to piece out a page of those per- 
sonalities of which so many journals are now drearily full, 
I can give you only scantest welcome. I have commissioned 
my daughter to say as much to you; and I hope she will do it 
with as much peremptoriness, and with a much larger gra- 
ciousness." It was almost impossible to lure such a man into 
public view. In 1895 he was asked to accept the presidency 
of the American Authors' Guild, and assured that his "only 
duties would be to preside when convenient, at eight monthly 
meetings." Of course he declined. On the back of the invi- 
tation appears the following note in Mr. Mitchell's hand: 
"Letter suggesting that I fill the place; but quite unsuited to 
my tastes and habits. Hard enough to preside at my own 
table!" In 1889 he wrote to Elizabeth: "I want an en- 
gagement beginning May 5th and ending May 12th, as far 
away from home as possible, to avoid an AA<£ convention. 
Doesn't A[lfred] want to send a messenger boy {ce. 67) to 
Jacksonville, or Birmingham, or Kansas, or Brunswick, or 
Salem ? c Best of references ! ' " 

Mr. Mitchell's shyness was combined with a rare humor 
which brightened his own life, and the lives of all with whom 
he came in contact. It counteracted his morbid tendencies 
and helped him to take a healthy view of life. At home he 
was not incapable of piquant criticism, which spared neither 
friend nor relative. Like Carlyle, he enjoyed the trenchant 

358 



HOME LIFE 

wit of his own comments. Such criticism, however, indulged 
in half for amusement, was not intended for the public, and 
he would have been greatly pained to know that any of it 
had gone beyond the family circle. There was delightful 
repartee in the home conversation, and a keen relish of jokes 
at the expense of members of the household. He could even 
relish a good joke at his own expense. 

Notwithstanding the fact that Mr. Mitchell professed 
great dislike of sitting for a photograph or a painting, his 
family suspected that he was not nearly so averse to portrai- 
ture as he seemed. They even ventured to believe that he 
was rather fond of securing good likenesses of himself, and 
they enjoyed the air of martyrdom with which he endured 
the sittings now and then required of him. His son-in-law, 
Mr. Edward L. Ryerson, half convinced that too good a 
likeness made Mr. Mitchell vain, arranged in 1901 with Gari 
Melchers to paint a portrait that would be emphatically 
representative of age. When the artist had finished, Mr. 
Mitchell turned to his son-in-law with the question: "Do you 
like it, Ned i" "Yes," was the mischievous reply, "I think 
it's very like you." "Well," Mr. Mitchell responded 
promptly, "I hope I shall live long enough to look like it." 
Upon an earlier (1899) portrait by G. A. Thompson, which 
Mr. Mitchell considered too faithful and realistic, he passed 
this caustic criticism: "I feel humiliated every time I look at 
that portrait of Thompson's. All the age, the stolidity, the 
cumbrous flesh-burden which beset an old man are honestly 
shown; but not one spark or trace of any wise and hopeful 
unrest; no smallest sign of any reach toward better things, or 
of any strain beyond fleshly cumbrances — in short, of the 
ideality which makes (or should make) every eager soul shine 
through its physical belongings, and give token of an inner 

359 






THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

brooding and redeeming spirituality. This is an excellent 
portrait — no way extenuated — of a weak old man, with hair 
uncombed, who is trying to cover the martyrdom of 'sitting 
for his picture' by spasms of content !" 

Mr. Mitchell had a habit of brightening birthdays and 
holidays with touches of sly humor. At one time he would 
present a book from his library to a member of the family, 
and later on, the same book to the same person — a practice 
which occasioned considerable merriment. After a while he 
formed the habit of prefacing his presentations with the 
remark: "Here is a book for you, provided I haven't given 
it to you before." When he had no money for presents, he 
would now and then write such a form as this: "I O U ten 
birthday dollars." Many times he would write some clever 
note to accompany his gifts. On the forty-fourth anni- 
versary of their marriage, May 31st, 1897, he gave Mrs. 
Mitchell an envelope containing a gift of gold and the follow- 
ing verses: 

For a horse, if you wish, 

Or a wedding dish, 

Or a Brockett 1 bill, 

Or whatever you will, 

To score up the day — 

On the last of May, 

"Forty-four year" ago, 

When we stood a-row 

In the old King Street room — 

The roses all a-bloom, 

And you in your wreath 

A-promising Parson Keith 

To love, honor, obey ! 

(It's what they all say !) 

1 Mr. Brockett was a carriage maker and repairer. 
360 



HOME LIFE 

The reader will doubtless recall the hope which Mr. 
Mitchell voiced in his valedictory oration that education in 
America "should seek a higher dignity by a more intimate 
alliance with morality." That was the early expression of a 
hope born of a deep-seated healthfulness of mind and purity 
of spirit which came to him from his Puritan ancestry. 
Every one who came in contact with him recognized at once 
that essential purity which was one of his most pronounced 
characteristics. The whole influence of his life was on the side 
of moral goodness. He never wrote a sentence that he would 
have wished to blot out through fear of its harmful influence 
upon an impressionable mind. His children tell me that in 
his home he was scrupulously careful to avoid even the sug- 
gestion of evil. It was always his custom in reading aloud 
to omit any passages which were in any way questionable. 
They seemed to embarrass him. Sometimes he was moved 
to a kind of savage outburst of witty comment. I have in 
mind particularly his dislike of the nude in painting and 
sculpture. He especially disliked St. Gaudens's statue of 
Diana. "Artemis, Greek Diana, [is] usually [represented] 
in kirtle, sometimes flowing to the feet, othertimes tressed up 
for swift movement through woods; always, too, with her 
bow and quiver," runs one of his notes. "Except, indeed, 
that old Diana of Ephesus, with the three tiers of breasts, 
who presided over a different cult. This, however, is char- 
acterized by best Grecians as non-Hellenic; it was colonial, 
provincial. Again, the true Hellenic Diana is represented as 
of first purity. iEschylus, in Agamemnon 135, characterizes 
her as ayva (chaste, pure); and Sophocles, Electra 1239, as 
alev a8fj.rjTav (pure; that is, untouched, unsubmitted). Now, 
that such a goddess — who slew Acteon, huntsman, because 
he had seen her bathing — that such a goddess should, 

361 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

though bearing quiver and bow, have every rag of clothing 
stripped from her to brave the higher atmosphere of New 
York (consider, too, that the poor creature was put to the 
same gross exposure on the Agricultural Building in Chicago) 
is, as appears to me, unwarranted by scripture, or good taste, 
or a pitying decency !" 

If any one thing more than another endeared Mr. Mitchell 
to the members of his family it was possibly his kindly and 
thoughtful unselfishness. He never spared himself to make 
those about him comfortable and happy. Many times he 
denied himself the use of money which he urgently needed 
in order to give aid or pleasure to wife or children. As time 
went on, he could not travel with pleasure while the family 
remained at home. "If I go, I shall leave New York about 
middle of May for Paris direct," he wrote to Huntington, 
March nth, 1878, when the matter of commissionership to 
the Universal Exposition was under consideration. "I 
should love dearly to take one of my daughters with me, 
but it is impossible. The cramp upon us poor landholders 
is an awful one. I demur most about going because I must 
leave those behind who would enjoy it all, and improve by 
it, more than I, but nevertheless they all urge, and insist, 
and entreat that I should go." 

Even when he was in Paris his mind was always reverting 
to Edgewood. The City of Berlin was scarcely started on her 
voyage when Mr. Mitchell was writing to his wife in this 
strain: "I puzzle myself from time to time with picturing the 
aspect of the garden, the hedge, the lawn, and the sight of 
you all wandering hither and thither about the place." 
These are the words of a man who had become unalterably 
attached to home; of one who had realized almost entirely his 
early dream: 

362 



HOME LIFE 

Your dreams of reputation, your swift determination, your im- 
pulsive pride, your deep-uttered vows to win a name, have all 
sobered into affection — have all blended into that glow of feeling 
which finds its centre and hope and joy in Home. ... It is not 
the house — though that may have its charms; nor the fields care- 
fully tilled, and streaked with your own footpaths; nor the trees — 
though their shadow be to you like that of a great rock in a weary 
land; nor yet is it the fireside, with its sweet blaze-play; nor the 
pictures which tell of loved ones; nor the cherished books; but more 
far than all these — it is the Presence. The Lares of your worship 
are there; the altar of your confidence is there; the end of your 
worldly faith is there; and adorning it all, and sending your blood 
in passionate flow, is the ecstasy of the conviction that there at 
least you are beloved; that there you are understood; that there 
your errors will meet ever with gentlest forgiveness; that there 
your troubles will be smiled away; that there you may unbur- 
den your soul, fearless of harsh, unsympathizing ears; and that 
there you may be entirely and joyfully — yourself. 1 

None could feel more keenly than Mr. Mitchell the inevi- 
table changes wrought by time. To see home and the joys 
of home slipping from him brought sorrow too deep for utter- 
ance. He saw life clearly, and never tried to deceive him- 
self by any cheap philosophy of optimism. "Death is al- 
ways death; and the place where the dead lie, always Gol- 
gotha," was his feeling. "No great station in life, and no 
great troop of friends, can take away wholly the sting of 
bitter home griefs," he wrote to his daughter Susan, March 
28th, 1904. And yet he refused to allow death to tyrannize 
over life. He knew the passing of three children: Hesse 
Alston 1st, in 1861; James Alfred in 1892; Pringle in 1900. 
Quietly and without bitterness he bore these afflictions. It 

1 Reveries of a Bachelor, 79-80. 
363 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

was his custom to have only a simple private funeral service, 
with the reading of a prayer and a hymn. At the service for 
James Alfred, Mr. Mitchell himself read the hymn, "O 
Mother Dear, Jerusalem," lingering with delight over the 
lines of these stanzas: 

Thy gardens and thy gallant walks 
Continually are green, 
There grow such sweet and pleasant flowers 
As nowhere else are seen. 

Quite through the streets, with silver sound, 
The flood of life doth flow; 
Upon whose banks on every side 
The wood of life doth grow. 

In 1 901 there came the crowning sorrow of his life — the 
death of Mrs. Mitchell. As he saw the inevitable approach- 
ing, he wrote these words: 

Edgewood, December 5th, 1901. 
I am sure that this (Thursday morning, 9 a. m.) is the last that 
my dear wife can look upon the sky and upon the faces of those she 
loves. A whole week she has been lingering — not suffering (as the 
good doctor assures us) but breathing scantily, taking no nourish- 
ment, yet with beautiful patience and serenity, waiting for the end 
in God's own time. Not wholly here, through all this week of 
lingering; but seeming already in a large measure translated to 
fields beyond, and only straggling and struggling back with a voice 
that made weak bubbles of faltering sound to try and cheer and 
comfort us; so used by her whole nature to giving cheer and com- 
fort to others that she could not help nor can she help now yearning 
to continue these offices of comfort with her fainting voice and 
fainting power. God take her — and reward her — as I know He 
will. 

364 



HOME LIFE 

After her burial, instead of remaining indoors to brood 
over his sorrow, Mr. Mitchell took his usual walk over the 
snow-clad hills, and found comfort in those beauties of na- 
ture which spoke to him of God. On the 19th of July 1903, 
he wrote to his daughter Harriet the following note, after he 
had read the tribute which she had written to the memory 
of her mother: "I have been reading your touching 'leaves' of 
writing about your good and sainted mother, and have cried 
over them. . . . With a little more fullness of biographical 
detail perhaps you would be willing they should be copied in 
type so that some of your friends might share your love and 
admiration. Think of this; but remember, too, that the 
fondest and best deserved memories of what is lost may, by 
too much dwelling on them, grow morbid and so cheat life of 
its courage and vital everyday duties. Think what your good 
mother would have taught you this wise. With all her sweet- 
ness and loveliness of character, her admirable good sense 
and sound judgment were yet dominant." In these words 
we recognize the note of healthfullness and sanity which 
dominated the home life of Edgewood. 



365 



XVIII 

FRIENDSHIPS 

Now, there is no man more glad to meet friends, I am sure 
— nay, none who longs for their presence at times, more than I. 
— D. G. M. in random note. 

Mr. Mitchell's friendships can be understood only in the 
light of his temperament. In the letters already given in 
this biography he has himself revealed the essential features 
of his nature. His reticence, his desire for solitude, his 
shrinking from publicity, all these qualities grew upon him 
with age — were fostered, indeed, by the retired life which he 
chose to live at Edgewood. There is a passage in an un- 
published sketch of his brother Louis, in which Mr. Mitchell 
has described his own nature quite accurately. "Another 
noticeable thing in him, noticeable by strangers especially, 
was a certain infelicity of manner when strangers broke sud- 
denly upon him. Like a plant grown in the shade, sud- 
denly set into the scald of bright sunlight, there was a wilt- 
ing, a poorly disguised eagerness to be rid of it all, and back 
in his quietude, and his corner. This shrinking habit of his, 
partly, I think, an inheritance ... he never outgrew; nor 
tried or wished to outgrow; never could, if he had wished. 
It was as much part of him, and as ineradicable, as the 
drooping habit of a harebell." Most people who came to 
know Mr. Mitchell in more than a casual way were familiar 
with this side of his nature. Those in authority found it al- 
most impossible to coax him away from Edgewood for a talk 

360 



FRIENDSHIPS 

to Yale students. Before going to Utica School in 1881 to 
read a few lectures he admonished Mrs. Piatt in this fash- 
ion: "Please, too, screen me from any dinings-out, or tea- 
fights. I am not up to it, and the readings alone exhaust 
all the nerve forces I can rally." 

I find a note in which he refers to a characteristic which 
puzzled even himself. "It is strange, but it is true, for my 
own experience most sadly confirms it, that the very persons 
of all the world whom I would be most glad to meet, and most 
tremble for joy to meet, I have absolutely avoided, if I saw 
them on the other side of the street; I have turned out of the 
way to avoid. What this means, or what is its philosophy, I 
do not, and cannot tell." In all likelihood such action was 
the result of his inherent shyness. It was difficult for him to 
make approaches, to establish immediate ease of relation- 
ship. The mere act of doing so consumed his energy, and 
became a weariness of the flesh. For many years he met on 
the New Haven street-cars prominent residents of the city 
with whom he came to no more than a casual speaking ac- 
quaintance. He seemed to have a dread of making advances, 
though, as his children assure me, when he was once "cor- 
nered" no man could be more charming. Ordinarily, if one 
wished to know Mr. Mitchell, and to enjoy his friendship, 
one found it necessary to make the first advances. Those 
who did seek him out were not disappointed. I find this 
statement in one of his note-books: "Now, the real essence 
of all hospitality, whether bestowed or offered, is to impress 
one with the feeling that bestowment of the favor is alto- 
gether on the guest's part, and that it is to be asked, not as 
alms, but a tender and welcome charity — a kindness." 
Those who sought him came to experience in his home such 
essential hospitality. 

367 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

A few sentences which he once wrote on the subject of 
"Calling" confirm my belief that what some people thought 
to be an unsocial element in his nature was only a paralysis 
of action — a dread of initiative: 

I believe a great many peaceable and injured men go out of the 
world with a weight of objurgation and acrimony heaped upon 
them unjustly, simply by reason of their horror of "calling." I 
must confess that I write this in a spirit of self-exculpation. I 
know I have made a vast many enemies that I never intended to 
make, that I feared to make, simply from my horror of "calling." 
Now, there is no man more glad to meet friends, I am sure — nay, 
none who longs for their presence at times, more than I. But to 
"call," to march to a naked front door, in a naked street; to ring a 
bell, and hear its echoes alarming all the quiet below, or in some 
back kitchen; to feel that the servant is wrested from her nap, and 
cook in a feeze lest it be some visitor who is to lodge, and the 
master and mistress started upon their several fancies; to be 
ushered into a stately parlor; to give one's name; to seek out an easy 
chair in that dim ten minutes of waiting; to compress civilities into 
a ten minutes' conventionalism of talk; to tell the same joke you 
told yesterday; to make those everlasting allusions to the unusual 
coldness of the season, or to the fineness of the day; to say the spring 
is remarkably late this year; and then, when you have just warmed 
through the insipidities and platitudes of conventional talk, and 
were just warming to say something you really meant, or to talk 
of something you really cared about, to find the best way out of it 
by bidding good morning — it is terrible. The walking up to a 
man's door designedly, of malice aforethought to commit this 
breach of heartiness and truth is fearful. I like the accidental 
meetings — now with my neighbor whom I see hoeing potatoes in 
his field. I drop over the fence, give him good day, sit upon a rail, 
and have a long chat with him. We waste no time in empty 
conventionalisms. 

368 



FRIENDSHIPS 

Along with all this reticence and love of solitude he had, 
as he said, a positive longing for human companionship. In 
fact, few men have been more dependent upon the good-will 
and the helpful encouragement — even the praise — of friends 
than was he. People recognized his sterling qualities, his 
entire sincerity, his hatred of sham; and valued his confidence 
accordingly. A kind of virtue went out from him, and in- 
fluenced people in all walks of life. It was no uncommon 
thing for washwomen in New Haven to keep his picture 
hanging on their walls. Henry Mills Alden once forwarded 
to Edgewood a book which he inscribed to "Donald G. 
Mitchell, who could have taken the hand, and has touched 
the heart, of every eminent man of letters in America." 
And we are to remember that Mr. Mitchell numbered his 
friends by the hundreds. To form some notion of his genius 
for friendship, it is only needful to say that he was personally 
acquainted with Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne, 
Charles Dickens, George P. Marsh, Bayard Taylor, Henry 
James, Sr., George Bancroft, Henry W. Longfellow, Na- 
thaniel P. Willis, Daniel C. Gilman, Paul Hamilton Hayne, 
Mary Mapes Dodge, Harriet Beecher Stowe, George William 
Curtis, and William Winter, all of whom admired and loved 
him. We are not surprised, however, to find that the really 
intimate friendships of a man endowed with such nature 
were few. 

His most intimate friends were three: Mary Goddard, 
William Henry Huntington, and Dr. B. Fordyce Barker. 
His affection for Mrs. Goddard, the Mary with whom we 
have become closely acquainted in the previous chapters, is 
best commemorated in a letter written by him to Julia Piatt 
soon after her mother's death. It bears date of May 30th, 
1886: 

369 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

I was sorry not to see more of you on that short stay in Nor- 
wich — and yet, not sorry. Talking, however well-meant, is always 
so idle when we are near to great griefs; and I am sure I can tell you 
better in a letter, how much I loved your mother, and how much 
she was to me during a long period of my life. In days you can't 
remember — you were so young — she was at once a sister and a 
mother to me, harming me very likely (as I see now) by care and 
indulgences which only a mother could show; making my life 
bright, and putting tender hopefulness in it when I was depressed 
and seemed doomed by deaths of those nearest, and death threat- 
ening me. Hence it is that I love that old house in Salem (which 
love you seem unable to understand) because your most affec- 
tionate and self-sacrificing mother made it a home to me, and 
never ceased doing things that made it more and more welcome to 
me; and doing them so well and cordially that in spite of all the 
depressions and isolation of it, I do still look back to those few years 
passed at Salem, when your mother reigned and beamed there, as 
among those which I look back to (and always shall) most yearn- 
ingly. The earlier days in which she was among the best beloved of 
our Norwich household, don't warm my memory in the same way 
(perhaps because so young then) as those later ones when she took 
me into a home of her own, and abounded in those kindnesses 
which I could look for no where else. You must never laugh at my 
cherishment of Salem reminiscences. They are broader and deeper 
— by reason of your mother — than you can well understand. 

After Mrs. Goddard's death, Mr. Mitchell cherished a simi- 
lar affection for her daughter, and gave to it lasting enshrine- 
ment in the graceful dedication of the third volume of 
English Lands, Letters, and Kings. 

B. Fordyce Barker was a native of Maine, born at Wilton, 
in 1 8 19. After graduation from Bowdoin in 1837, he com- 
pleted the course at Harvard Medical School in 1841, later 
studying in Edinburgh and Paris. His acquaintance with 

37o 



FRIENDSHIPS 

Mr. Mitchell began in Paris in 1844, and ripened into friend- 
ship after he began practising his profession in Norwich, 
Connecticut, in 1845. Barker was of a free and open nature. 
He was fond of society, and a lavish dispenser of hospitality. 
"His faceand smile," wrote Mr. Mitchell, "made friendships 
wherever he went. Irving took to him at sight. His tact 
was marvelous; his intuition, wonderful; his observation, 
strangely acute." In short, he was just the kind of friend a 
shy, sensitive man needed. In 1856 Dr. Barker went to 
New York City, and rose to great prominence in his pro- 
fession. Columbia University conferred the Doctorate of 
Laws upon him in 1877, Edinburgh in 1884, Bowdoin in 
1887, and Glasgow in 1888. Mr. Mitchell rejoiced in every 
honor that came to Dr. Barker, as if it were his own. Twice 
he gave public recognition to their friendship by dedicating 
to the doctor Fudge Doings and Seven Stories. In 1878 it 
was Mr. Mitchell's good fortune to enjoy a period of Euro- 
pean travel with Dr. Barker, when both had the privilege of 
spending a few days as the guests of Sir Spencer Wells, 
physician to Queen Victoria, at his beautiful country home 
near Hampstead. Dr. Barker was never so busy that he 
could not find time to go to Edgewood to render needed medi- 
cal attention to his friend. Although they did not often 
have the opportunity of seeing each other, their friendship 
continued warm and intimate until the death of Dr. Barker 
in 1891. 

We must remember that Mr. Mitchell was twenty-two 
years old when he met Barker. Theirs was, of necessity, a 
friendship of maturity; it was not founded upon common 
childhood memories. It was partly because of such foun- 
dation that the friendship existing between him and William 
Henry Huntington was the most intimate of his life — as it 

37i 






THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

was the most intimate of Huntington's life. As we have 
seen, it began during earliest childhood when both were at- 
tending "dame school" in Norwich. In a letter written to 
Mrs. Mitchell, June 12th, 1879, Mr. Huntington referred to 
its genesis in this fashion: 

Your letter of 29th May came in yesterday. I am indeed sorry 
to hear that your good husband has been suffering from acutely 
painful malady. I have not wittingly an enemy on earth, and 
wish no one ill, but there is hardly another whom I wish so well as 
Don Mitchell. Your good husband has been for long my very 
good friend; except an only surviving brother, there is no one 
living whom I have known so long. Our acquaintance began more 
than half a century ago at Miss Goodale's school, and ripened 
into intimacy over Webster's Spelling Book. It is odd how dis- 
tinctly I recollect, when we had attained words of three syllables, 
his putting his finger on the word "catholic," in which he found 
specially amusing quality by virtue of the cat part of it. . . . Then 
we lost sight of each other. D. G. went away to Ellington, or some 
such foreign parts, and then to college, and we re-met only after his 
first return from Europe. It required little scraping to come to ac- 
quaintance again, and presently after his second return this grew 
to a friendship of more honor, profit, and prize to me than any other 
I rejoice in to-day. And this I have partly to thank you for, dear 
Mrs. Mitchell; at least have to thank you for not drawing it away, 
as young ladies sometimes do the bachelor friendships of their 
young lords. ... I never forget how kindly you received me 
when you came to Paris, and when my way leads through Rue 
Luxembourg, I look up to the corner windows, and feel the better 
for it to this day. 

About 1 85 1 Huntington went to Paris, where he re- 
mained, except for occasional visits to America, living the 
life of a recluse bachelor. He became a collector of books 

372 



FRIENDSHIPS 

and art treasures, his art collection eventually finding place 
in the Metropolitan Museum of New York City. Through- 
out their lives the two friends — so unlike in their domestic 
relationships — maintained delightful correspondence. Hunt- 
ington had a happy humor, and a wholesome, hearty outlook 
upon life, which he always attempted to impart to his friend, 
especially when replying to a letter of melancholy tone. 

After a visit to Edgewood in 1866, Huntington wrote, 
January 9th: 

My two days with you and our gracious Lady of Edgewood, and 
the pretty children there, were foremost ... in glad experience, 
and rest always high placed in my pleasantest memories. You 
were saying one of those agreeable nights, or one of those charming 
mornings, that you might have done better than in your writing 
line had you taken to the preaching profession. Ah, if you only 
knew, dear, happy man, how wisely and well you preached to me 
miserable from your wise, happy, fulfilled life as father of sweet 
children, and husband seven-fold blessed ! . . . Thank the higher 
powers that you have been let be so fortunate and full-fruited 
with 

love, and a space for delight, 
And beauty and length of days, 
And night, and sleep in the night; 

when for every one of ninety-nine in a hundred it rests true that 

He weaves, and is clothed with derision; 

Sows, and he shall not reap; 
His life is a watch or a vision 

Between a sleep and a sleep. 

Sometimes he adopted a lighter tone, as in his letter of 
November 5th, 1878: 

I do say that a man verging toward sixty who can cut and cut up 
a cord of wood a day (why Gladstone is only seventy or so, and he 

373 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

only cuts one tree at a time), and go home after that to satisfy his 
earned appetite at a table beset by a charming, loving household, 
and has good baccy to smoke (think what vegetable matter we 
have here for our pipes, and be thankful !) and a good wood-fire to 
smoke it at, and then goes picking a quarrel with this poor old 
world's goings-on, ought to be — spanked. D. G. M. do do all these 
things. Then D. G. M. ought to be spanked, i^. E. D. You are 
not near enough — how 1 wish you were ! — for me to perform that 
stern but pleasing office. And I doubt if there be anyone in your 
immediate neighborhood of sufficient muscular vigor and authori- 
tative age to undertake it. 

In 1883 Mr. Mitchell determined to dedicate a new edi- 
tion of Dr. Johns to his boyhood friend. "I don't know if 
you will approve/' he wrote, November 28th, 1883, "but I 
have put your name on an initial page of the new edition of 
Dr. Johns (very much revised and somewhat cut down in 
preachments) as dedicatee. A cablegram, if you insist to the 
contrary, would very like come in time to stop the matter; 
but I hope you won't." Huntington had no desire "to stop 
the matter." On the 24th of March 1884, he wrote: "The 
fact of the dedication, and its form, are most grateful to me. 
The book I read again with more than the first interest. I 
don't think this is because of what you have cut from, or 
added to, the first edition — am sure it is not mainly because 
of that; but rather because of my being almost thirty years 
further removed from the scenes and their moral atmosphere, 
which you reproduce. To the truth of the drawing, time has 
lent the charm of perspective, and a softened harmony of 
color. And then I had just been reading La Joie de Vivre y 
after which Dr. Johns is like a bath and [a] clean shirt." 

Huntington died in Paris, October 1st, 1885. More 
than a year later (November 5th, 1886), Mrs. Estelle E. 

374 



FRIENDSHIPS 

Doremus wrote to Mr. Mitchell as follows: "After having 
closed the eyes of poor Huntington, I took a spray of flowers, 
the last thing his eyes had rested upon, and placed it in his 
hand until they took him away for burial. . . . His faithful 
nurse Angele — she was an angel, indeed, to him — used to 
talk continually of his dearest friend, * Monsieur Michel.' 
It was a long time before I found out that it was you she 
meant. 'He loved Monsieur Michel the best,' she would 
repeat. I thought you would like to know this, so I took a 
flower from his hand and pressed it, that it might go with the 
message. " 

When Dr. Barker died, in 1891, Mr. Mitchell realized 
that his intimate friends were indeed gone. To be sure there 
yet remained a few college-mates — Yarn all, Curwen, Emer- 
son, Law — but with these it was impossible that he should 
ever enjoy such communion as that with Barker and Hunt- 
ington. To Mr. Mitchell friendship was a matter of quality, 
not of quantity. It was enough for him to have known three 
such friends as Mary Goddard, Henry Huntington, and 
Fordyce Barker. And it is sufficient testimony to the rich- 
ness of a man's nature, and to his capacity for friendship, to 
have won such warmth of affection from one strong-minded 
woman, and from two men of high intellect and distinguished 
attainment. 



37* 



XIX 
THE LONG TWILIGHT 

I will hope for a sunset, when the day ends, glorious with crim- 
son and gold. — Reveries of a Bachelor, 257. 

But a crimson belt yet lingered over the horizon, though the 
stars were out. — Reveries of a Bachelor, 2gj. 

After passing the age of seventy Mr. Mitchell kept more 
and more closely within the bounds of his Edgewood home. 
He had travelled; he had tasted adventure; he had known 
busy cities; he had experienced a great blaze of popular 
favor; and through a long succession of years had enjoyed 
the quiet of country life. With age came no regret for the 
course which he had followed; rather, a deepening conviction 
that in no other way could he so well have fulfilled his na- 
ture. Time had only made the calm of Edgewood increas- 
ingly satisfying to him, had ripened his genial philosophy 
of life, and brought him both contentment and wisdom. 
After a long period of strenuous endeavor, pressing financial 
problems had now been eliminated. At times he felt, of 
course, the oppressions of age, and that sense of loneliness 
and melancholy which comes to those who have outlived al- 
most all of their own generation. He had once begun the 
somewhat saddening practice of checking in his Yale cata- 
logues the names of his instructors and classmates, as each 
died. By the end of 1899 he had checked off the entire 
faculty of his college days, and all but 10 of the 104 fresh- 
men of 1837. When he died he was survived by only 3 of 
his own class. The death of Mrs. Mitchell in 1901 left him 

37<> 



THE LONG TWILIGHT 

solitary, and brought realization of the fact that for him 
memories constituted the most of life. And yet withal, 
in its own way, this was a peaceful, even a happy period. 
His faithful daughters ministered to his comfort. He en- 
joyed the affection of thousands of unseen friends who 
visited him by letter; and knew the homage of many 
whose pilgrimages centred at Edgewood. "I have much 
to be thankful for," he remarked to me in August 1903. 
"I have lived long, and suffer few of the infirmities of age. 
Time has dealt gently with me." Twilight had indeed 
come — a twilight long, beautiful, serene. 

"The Edgewood farm experiences are near and yet some- 
how remote," he wrote in December 1897. 1 "The same old 
scenes are before me now, yet I have long foregone that close 
superintendence of farm-cropping to which I brought a 
young enthusiasm; and I see, full-face, negligences that are 
disturbing, and disorder which is past my power of mending. 
But nature wears always its old serenities. No less than at 
the beginning, keenest attention and loving care are given to 
those garden spaces immediately about me, where thirty 
years since I planted and watered my salads and brooded in 
the sunshine. In all this near territory I take the old delight, 
and find the fruits as sweet, the earth as kindly, the flowers as 
fragrant, and the sun as warm as when home began. The 
trees, too, are steadier and stancher friends; the shaded walks 
coiling away upon the hills, the purple distance, and the 
bright sheen of sea have the old charm. The autumn haunts 
of the woodland are still full of fire and gold; but the shadows 
the trees cast are longer, and so are the shadows of the years. 
But whatever the shadows may be, it is good to have a foot- 
hold upon Mother Earth, and to live face to face with nature, 

l "The Season's Greeting," Breeder's Gazette, December 15th. 

377 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

where birds and brooks and breezes keep up their anthem, 
and all sounds invite 'peace and good will to men." 

Until within a few months of his death, he continued to 
use the axe, cutting and splitting the wood with which he 
filled the shed for the glowing hearth-fires of early autumn 
and winter. While strength remained, he took long walks 
over the Woodbridge hills behind Edgewood. Sometimes 
he went beyond New Haven in the street-cars, and spent the 
afternoons wandering about the countryside. Again, with one 
of his daughters he would drive into the Salem region, and 
live over the days of his youth. He was pleased when, upon 
a suggestion from him, his brother Alfred purchased 1,200 
acres of the ancestral domains and brought them (1 900-1 903) 
once more under Mitchell control. After walking became diffi- 
cult for him he seldom passed a day without a leisurely drive. 
In the evening he turned to his books, or worked at map- 
making. Oftener still, as his eyesight grew more feeble, he 
listened while his daughters read. His habit of work per- 
sisted, and he ventured to project literary tasks that would 
have tried the strength of a younger, stronger man. I find 
that after the publication of the second volume of American 
Lands and Letters in 1899, he turned to the preparation of 
another, as is attested by a statement upon one of the sheets 
to the effect that the notes were for "a possible but not prob- 
able third volume." As late as 1907 he was hoping for 
strength sufficient to prepare for publication the manuscript 
of the fifth volume of English Lands, Letters, and Kings. 
With Bunyan's Feeblemind he could say: "This I have re- 
solved on, to run when I can, to go when I cannot run, and 
to creep when I cannot go. As to the main I am fixed; my 
way is before me, my mind is beyond the river that has no 
bridge." 

378 



THE LONG TWILIGHT 

He made an occasional visit to his daughter, Mrs. Ed- 
ward L. Ryerson, of Chicago; but for the most part confined 
his travel to such distances as did not keep him from home 
overnight. Even New York City came to seem far off to 
him. "Thank you for your kind invitation," he wrote to 
Mr. Charles Scribner, December 15th, 1896; "but I have not 
been in New York for a night for four or five years; have not 
even passed through for three years, and feel very much as 
if I had lost all fellowship with cities." 

By 1895 his family had all gone out from Edgewood save 
the daughters Elizabeth, Hesse, and Harriet. With a filial 
devotion rarely equalled, they cared for their distinguished 
father. He recognized the beauty of this devotion, and never 
tired of paying tribute to it. "Well," he wrote to Elizabeth 
in 1899, "the seventy-seventh year has ended ! I wonder if 
another can come ? These last years, with all the weaknesses, 
and the tottering steps, and the 'grass-hoppers* heaping up 
the 'burdens/ have not been the unpleasantest of life; for 
the kindnesses of those immediately about me have multi- 
plied and made the ' down-hill road' seem like a goodly level, 
with welcoming lights shining on a home-hearth at the end of 
all the walks and drives I take." 

In 1 901 Mr. Mitchell made his last public appearance in 
connection with the two hundredth anniversary of the found- 
ing of Yale. "As an inheritor of some side-flow of Wood- 
bridge blood," he was chosen to give the principal address at 
the dedication of Woodbridge Hall on the 23d of October. 
Not the least of the pleasure which he derived from this oc- 
casion resulted from his strong belief "that monumental 
memorials consecrated to every-day, high, human uses are 
far better worth than all the glitter of church-yards, and all 
the pomp of funeral obsequies." Notwithstanding his ad- 

379 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

vanced age, he was at his best on that day — his health good, 
his voice clear and melodious. In a delightful way he 
sketched the life of Timothy Woodbridge, for whom the 
building was named; and, as he closed, gave expression to his 
vision of Yale's future: 

And so this great belt of Woodbridge influences which I have 
sketched in bold outline — cropping out in churches, in teeming 
villages, in mills that fire the October nights — this whole Wood- 
bridge belt, I say, is to-day buckled by this jewel of a building 
about the loins of this stalwart University of Yale. Long may it 
last poised here midway between the groups of offices dedicated to 
science, and those others southward, dedicated to letters and the 
humanities ! And whoso holds the reins in this comely adminis- 
trative center should see to it that there is even working of these 
two great teams of progress — no nagging at one, while free rein is 
given to the other ! Ah, what fine judgment belongs to driving 
well — whether on coaches, or in colleges, or in capitols ! 

There are oldish people astir — gone-by products of these mills 
of learning — who will watch anxiously lest harm be done to apostles 
of the old humanities. You may apotheosize the Faradays and 
Danas and the Edisons and Huxleys, and we will fling our caps in 
the air ! But we shall ask that you spare us our Plato, our Homer, 
our Virgil, our Dante, and perhaps our "chattering" Aristotle and 
scoffing Carlyle. Truth — however and wherever won — without 
nervous expression to spread and plant it, is helpless; a bird without 
wings ! And there are beliefs tenderly cherished — and I call the 
spires of nineteen centuries to witness — which do not rest on the 
lens or the scalpel ! 

I hope that the glow of a hundred other Octobers may mellow 
the tone of this marble hall, and that within times we lag- 
gards may hope to reach, a broad esplanade all unencumbered, 
and flanked with shading lindens if the elms fail us, shall sweep 
away southward, and by a rich, lofty, fretted portal cloven through 

380 






THE LONG TWILIGHT 

the walls of Durfee, give rich and far perspective into the court of 
the great Academe beyond. And I see in my mind's eye, springing 
from this lofty portal, a new Rialto, stiff with sinews of steel, rich 
with emblems, spanning at one bound the surging tides of traffic 
that ebb and flow through Elm Street, binding the two great 
courts in one; and with winged figures in bronze upon the parapets, 
recording Yale's triumphs of the past, and heralding a thousand 
other triumphs to come. 

During these quiet years there came to Mr. Mitchell 
frequent public recognition of the ideals for which he had 
labored. He was peculiarly gratified by that which came 
from the New England Association of Park Superintendents, 
when, at the annual meeting in New Haven, June 14th, 1904, 
the following minute was adopted: 

Resolved, that we present to Mr. Donald G. Mitchell a loving 
cup as a token of our appreciation of his life-long interest in the 
promotion of a better out-door life, and as an expression of the 
love we bear him for the kindly words he has ever written and 
spoken, and our admiration of his work in laying the foundation 
of the city beautiful on which we have tried to build. 

The next day Mr. Christopher Clarke, of Northampton, 
Massachusetts, on behalf of the association greeted Mr. 
Mitchell as "a pioneer master workman." "We gratefully 
acknowledge," continued Mr. Clarke in presenting the cup, 
"that you have laid the foundation for scientific and beauti- 
ful park building throughout this country." 

Year by year the spell of the past grew upon him. "Won- 
derful," he wrote, "how the memory goes over, and re- 
possesses, and re-populates the domain of early child-years, 
as the frailties of age press on one ! Never, it seems to me, 
in all these seventy-one years which have drifted by me since 

38i 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

I strode up and down with boyish eagerness in my father's 
garden, have I been able to recall the scenes, the beds, the 
clumps of bushes, the strawberry patches, the early apple 
trees and their respective positions, as to-day, when my 
gouty ringers half-rebel at the office of writing ! I could, I 
am sure, make a better (because truer in detail) map of the 
garden — its beds, its surfaces, its boundaries, its every 
compartment, its arbors, to-day, than I could have done 
thirty years ago, when only forty years had elapsed. Why 
and how is this ?" 

The fascination of the past did not, however, stifle the 
alertness which characterized his old age. He delighted in 
keeping abreast of the times, in following the rapid advance 
of knowledge. The latest newspapers, magazines, and books 
were always at hand in the library. He knew the most re- 
cent developments in science, religion, and literature, and 
adjusted himself without difficulty to enlarging views of the 
universe. The pointed annotations which he was accustomed 
to make in his volumes have given me some notion of how 
thoroughly he read. 

As the shadows lengthened, he fell to musing upon the 
deep things of the spirit, and felt an increased awe and rever- 
ence growing upon him. His religion became simpler and 
more vital; it had, in fact, long been growing so; he valued 
increasingly the realization of religion "in loveliness of per- 
fect deeds," and became more and more impatient of mere 
words. "Sermons should not surely be long on Thanks- 
giving Day; but short, and crisp, and keen, and clear, and 
abounding in high incentive to all worthy work," he once 
wrote. 1 "Let us get over the idea, too, that hearty thanks- 

1 Under pen-name " Jno. Crowquill," in semi- weekly edition of the Tribune, 
New York, 1881. 

382 



THE LONG TWILIGHT 

giving can only come out and declare itself in long prayer; or 
that any specialty of attitude or utterance will cover and 
exhaust its spirit. It finds voice in every man's day-long 
and week-long cheeriness, and in the equanimity and the 
courage with which he battles with the worst. Right man- 
ful and sturdy endeavor in all needful or humane work of any 
sort is in itself thanksgiving. A close grip on duty is as good 
as a 'saying of grace/ More and more the monasticism of 
mere holy utterance is giving place in wise men's minds to 
the holy helpfulness in all ways of charity and mercy that 
sublimes the tenor of a life." The last quarter-century of 
his life was but a growing into the ideals expressed in such 
a passage. 

"What can be better/' he asks in one of his random 
notes, "than implicit trust in the Power that placed us here, 
and that will reign wherever we go ? What weariness of 
brain and heart in the wastes of theologic discussion as to 
what may be, or may not be ! In regard to the personality 
of a Supreme Power, or about our own relation to that Power, 
what can we know save that the one is dominant, is imma- 
nent, and ceases not; and the other beyond all reach of 
thought save what is compassed in the words, 'Our Father' ?" 
Many pages of such notes bear witness to the frequency of 
his religious meditations. I have deciphered several others 
worthy of preservation: 

We are to believe in immortality because there is a sense of 
incompleteness about life, except it have some indefinite extension. 
We do many things which are misunderstood, though the act is 
well-intentioned. Except there be a future where such things are 
cleared up, where " justice" is declared, how incomplete and un- 
balanced life is ! Every good deed, we think, must have its good 

383 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

outcome; but how, if there is no judgment passed upon it, no recog- 
nition of it, no ultimate decision of the point, whether it be good or 
bad ? This would be miserable business ! Not to know, never to 
be known, whether right is right, or wrong, wrong ! What a 
hopeless, dreary, pointless muddle all this life and its aims would 
resolve itself into; as if, indeed, right living, right thinking, right 
actions, never had consequence; were never even more than so 
much chance drifting of impulse, of occasion, of "happenings" to 
you or me, that did not link into chains of intent, of dependence, 
stretching from far away, remote inheritances, and reaching to 
remotest, dimmest futurity, where justice and judgment shall be 
declared, and be accepted, and reign supremely ! 

What an awful change simple, absolute honesty would make in 
this life ! And if anything is assured, by instruction and by best 
psychologic reckonings, about a life beyond this, it is the fact that 
an atmosphere of honesty is what all must breathe there — pinch 
as it may, and pinch whom it may ! 

What principle of segregation shall govern the sub-division of 
the great army of the sheep and of the goats ? Who shall make for 
us those old-accredited divisions of the race, into the very good and 
the very bad ? The line of demarcation will not be so sharp and so 
easily and clearly denned as some of our stolid orthodox preachers 
used to declare with brazen utterance. But whatever happens, 't is 
certain that what is light and bright and warming here, will be 
light and bright in regions beyond this; and what is dark and re- 
pellent and ugly and deceitful here, will wear the same disguises of 
shadow in another world. There is no alchemy in death that will 
change truth into untruth, or vice versa. 

If I had a parish, I would lay out subjects for every Sunday in 
the year. I would not indulge in theological disputation, nor try 
to defend dogmas, nor even to preach morality; but I would try to 
grasp vital subjects, and so enwrap them with our hopes, and affec- 

384 



THE LONG TWILIGHT 

tions, and ambitions, as to make them panoplies of faith, and 
constant urgents or determinants of good works. I would tell 
what I had come to know and feel of the fatherhood of God, of his 
determining presence with us, of his mystery, or of the mystery 
which enwraps all earnest thoughts of things supreme and ever- 
during. I would discuss prayer, conscious and unconscious; and 
other forms of spiritual contact with Deity. I would try to show 
that it is needless and bootless to struggle for a conception of Deity 
determinate and fixed; that to attempt to arrive at such a concep- 
tion is like putting the tape-measure with which we estimate cloth- 
widths, to a mountain, or the sky. Why, indeed, is such a con- 
ception important, or to be sought? Can words or thought ever 
carry us beyond the actuality, the fact-concept that He is, and He 
reigns? The greatest word-master can only put tints and colors 
into his exhibit of Divine quality; and what painter can approach 
the ineffable, inexpressible mystery and power and love of Him 
who reigns? 

Now and then, even during sleep, such musings continued 
to occupy his mind. On one occasion when there drifted 
through his consciousness the beautiful words of Psalm 
127 : 2, "He giveth his beloved sleep," there came to him the 
following lines which he wrote down upon awaking: 

Is it morning we shall see 
When the night of flesh gives out, 
When life's battle ends in rout — 
Shall we call it morning, then? 
Morning such as mortal men 
Know not, and shall never know ! 
Mortal eyes can never see 
Dawning of the "things to be." 
Shall death purge us of the dross 
That now films our eyes across ? 

38s 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

Meanwhile, his sense of humor did not desert him. The 
incongruities and the drolleries of life amused him as highly 
as in earlier days. He still delighted in wholesome fun and 
quick repartee. He even enjoyed reference to the grim 
realities of time. "I should think you would be interested 
in the living authors, not the dead ones," he remarked to a 
visitor. Among his notes, I find this passage: "Old Age! 
What a rum title for a book or a booklet in which to show how 
it creeps surely, swiftly, noiselessly — not threateningly, or 
with clatter, but with a tread like the interposed lap of 
mountains in a picture — scarce showing fissures or joinings; 
its big, dominating swells hiding small intervals, but piling, 
lifting, and taking ice in their gulches!" 

Time and strength sufficed for the completion of one more 
task. Late in 1906 the Scribners planned to have Mr. 
Mitchell supervise a final issue of his writings, a work to 
which the veteran author looked forward with satisfaction 
and pleasure. His old modesties, however, clung to him to 
the last. Remonstrating against the plan of his publishers 
to use the expression, "The Works of Donald G. Mitchell/' 
he wrote (July 18th, 1907): "Unless there be good reason to 
the contrary, couldn't 'The Works' be dropped? 'The 
Works' seems to me a little pompous and pretentious." 

For more than a year the fifteen volumes of this Edge- 
wood edition were in process of making. The task had to be 
accommodated to Mr. Mitchell's pace. "Pray excuse me if 
I work very slowly," he wrote to his publishers, November 
1st, 1906. "Age has a hard grip upon me, under which mole- 
hills turn to mountains. ... I half doubt (especially 
after morning hours are gone) if the work is worth doing at 
all ! Some sort of preface for the series (to go in Fresh 
Gleanings) I will write before many days." Months passed, 

386 






THE LONG TWILIGHT 

the preface remained unwritten, and the publishers were in 

despair. In reply to a personal appeal from Mr. Charles 

Scribner, Mr. Mitchell wrote the following letter, almost the 

last with reference to literary matters which came from his 

pen: 

Edgewood, 4th August 1907. 
Dear Mr. Scribner, 

Your kind letter of recent date came duly. I have tried hard to 
put my mind to the little task you propose; but still, as many times 
before, my mind is laggard, and won't find fit words for the occa- 
sion. I know you've reason to be annoyed, but you haven't made 
proper allowance for the burden of years. My daughters try to 
put me up to the work, and say all manner of kind and provocative 
things; but — the needed words stay. I will try again next week, 
and should you fail to receive somewhat by Thursday or Friday, 
put me down as incorrigible and preface-less. 

Very truly yours, 

Dond G. Mitchell. 

Try again he did, and the copy for the preface went forward 
to New York City on August 10th. We should all be sorry 
to have been deprived of that delightful farewell. I am in- 
clined to think that every one who reads those seven pages of 
prefatory matter will agree that "the shaky and uncertain 
forces which beleaguer a man well steeped in the 'eighties," 1 
in no way obscured the charm and the grace of Mr. Mitchell's 
style. 

The publishers had undertaken the Edgewood edition 
none too soon. Had the work been delayed another twelve- 
month, it could not have received the personal attention of 
the author. Providence, however, had been kind. There 
had been no shortening of the twilight. Time and strength 
sufficient unto the task had been allotted; and even yet for 

387 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

Mr. Mitchell a season of quiet rest and contemplation re- 
mained. There were, though, no more ambitious hopes, no 
more sturdy plans. Life's work had rounded into the 
evening that shortens labor. 



388 



XX 

THE END 

And as he looks forward . . . there is something in the thought 
of lying at last under the trees that grow old and die, and spring 
again, and beside the brooks that murmur softly, as they did when 
he was young, and as they will do when his body is dust, which rec- 
onciles him even to the grave; and which carries his hope from the 
trees and the brooks up to that Power whose wisdom and strength 
they adorn, and whose mercy and goodness they show forth con- 
tinually. — The Lorgnette ', 2.174. 

During the first seven months of 1908, Mr. Mitchell en- 
joyed the quiet routine of Edgewood. His zest for the out- 
of doors was as keen as ever, and, if strength at all permitted, 
no day passed without its walk or drive. But "the feeble- 
ness and half-invalidism" which he characterized as "the 
normal rest of the eighties/* were perceptibly growing upon 
him. He tired more quickly; he rested more frequently on 
his library couch. And yet through all he continued to en- 
joy life. One bit of recognition came just not too late. On 
the 10th of August the Edgewood Civic Association made 
him its first honorary member; "for giving us the name of 
Edgewood, and recording in permanent literature the at- 
tractive features of this part of New Haven; for his pioneer 
efforts to promote architectural and landscape beauty upon 
private places and in public parks; and for his delightful 
agricultural and literary essays," are the words which con- 
veyed the reason for the action. 

389 



THE LIFE OF DONALD G. MITCHELL 

August was nearing its meridian when the change came. 
On the morning of the 13th, Mr. Mitchell, in cheerful mood, 
had taken a drive over the familiar hills in company with one 
of his daughters. After dining he had, as was his custom, 
gone into the library to rest. The stroke came swiftly. 
Within an hour after he had lain down, there came a hemor- 
rhage — the opening of some old wound in the lung, so the 
physicians thought — and he recognized that death could not 
be far off. 

The beauty and the serenity of twilight now deepened 
into shadow. Long before, in Dream Life, the young author 
had looked forward to the end. "Hoary age, crowned with 
honor and with years, bears no immunity from suffering. 
This is the common heritage of us all; if it come not in the 
spring, or in the summer of our day, it will surely find us in 
the autumn, or amid the frosts of winter." And so it was 
that in the winter of his life the storms came upon him. The 
sudden attack of illness resulted in a clouding of his mind. 
A long life of unusual mental activity had worn out the deli- 
cate mechanism of the brain, although the strong vital flame 
yet burned within the body. For months the man who had 
taught the world to love him, wandered in a dreamy maze, 
brightened now and then by flashes of the old and charming 
manner. Most of the time he did not recognize those about 
him. Again, he seemed half conscious of his surroundings. 
Sometimes, as he stood at the library window and gazed out 
over lawn and hedge, he spoke softly to himself: "I used to 
know this place, and it was beautiful. Yes, I believe I 
planted those trees and flowers." 

He was cared for with an affection and a tenderness 
taught by the example of his own life. With loved ones 
around him he died about nine o'clock in the evening, De- 

390 



THE END 

cember 15th, 1908, in the library which for those many years 
had been his retreat "from paine and wearisome turmoyle." 
The blaze of a wood-fire on the open hearth illuminated the 
calm face and the snowy hair of the Master of Edgewood 
as he lay in the quiet of death. 

In accordance with his own wish the funeral was entirely 
private. The peaceful atmosphere of home encircled him to 
the last, and he was borne from Edgewood by the kindly 
hands of sons and grandsons. On the 17th of December, he 
was buried in the Woodbridge cemetery in a lot chosen by 
himself and planted by his own hands with tree and vine and 
hedge. A simple stone marks his grave — the granite bearing 
words in lettering of his own design: 

DONALD G. MITCHELL 

1822-1908. 

There, overlooking the beautiful Woodbridge hills, which he 
loved with undying affection, he lies beside his wife and 
his sons Pringle and James Alfred. 



391 



APPENDIX 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

In the following chronological list of Mr. Mitchell's writings 
the names of all books or pamphlets are set in italics. Contribu- 
tions to newspapers and magazines are in Roman type. The list 
is complete so far as books and pamphlets are concerned. It is 
incomplete otherwise, but it is believed that all really important 
items are given. 

For the first three years all the contributions except the last 
entry under 1841 appeared in the Yale Literary Magazine. 

1839 
The Heir of Lichstenstein. A Sketch. (August), 4.458-463. 
Sketches of Real Life, or Scraps from a Doctor's Diary. 
No. 1. The Victim of Fear. (December), 5.66-78. 

1840 

Sketches of Real Life, or Scraps from a Doctor's Diary. 

No. 2. Unsuccessful Love. (January), 139-148. 

No. 3. Unsuccessful Love. (February), 191-202. 
James Fenimore Cooper. (March), 249-259. 
To our Readers. (June), 353-355. 
Bulwer. (June), 356-365. 

Thoughts upon Novel Reading. (July), 438-444. 
Epilegomena. (July), 445-448. 
More Scraps from my Diary. 

A Night in the Hospital. (August), 487-491. 

A Chapter in a Life. (August), 492-495. 
Sir Walter Scott. (November), 6.1-10. 
Fragment. Verse. (November), 25. 
Epilegomena. (November), 42-44. 
The Mirror, or Tablets of an Idle Man. 

Part i. (November), 26-34. 

Part ii. (December), 65-73. 

184 1 

The Mirror, or Tablets of an Idle Man. 

Part iii. (January), 100-109. 

Part iv. (February), 160-169. 

Part v. (May), 261-272. 
A Chapter in a Life. (January), 126-133. 
Burke and Newton. (May), 237-250. 

The Dignity of Learning. A Valedictory Oration. New Haven. Printed 
by B. L. Hamlen. 

395 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



1842 



Frank Upton. A Story. Knickerbocker (June), 19.507-516. 
Field Sports. North American Review (October), 55.343-372. 
Plans of Farm Buildings. Illustrated. Transactions of the New York State 
Agricultural Society, 125-130. 

1843 

Landscape Gardening and Rural Architecture. New Englander (April), 
1. 203-2 1 5. 

1844 

The Fashionable Monthlies. New Englander (January), 2.96-105. 
Correspondence. Cultivator (December), 1.365. 

1845 

Notes upon Letters. American Review (January), 1.60-74. 
Correspondence. Cultivator. 

(February), 2.53-54. 

(March), 98-99. 

(April), 120-121. 

(May), 138-139. 

(June), 172-173. 

(July), 201-202. 

(August), 236-237. 

(September), 268-269. 

(October), 300-301. 

(November), 330-331. 
Correspondence. New York Commercial Advertiser. Letters from the places 
indicated appear in the issues of this newspaper as dated. These letters, 
with the exception of the third, are signed " Don." 

From London, April 17. 

From Windsor, April 24. 

From Liverpool, May 14. 

From Dublin, May 20. 

From Dove Valley, Derbyshire, May 30. 

From London, June 2. 

From Sheffield, July 28. 

1846 

Correspondence. Cultivator (February), 3.50. 
Notes by the Road. American Review, as under: 

No. i. Of What it Costs, and How it Costs. (February), 4.145-158. 

No. ii. How One Lives in Paris. (October), 377-388. 

No. iii. A Glimpse of the Apennines. (November), 449-458. 

No. iv. From the Elbe to the Zuyder Zee. (December), 588-599. 
Letter from Washington. Morning Courier and New York Enquirer, Decem- 
ber 17. (Later this was classed as one of the "Capitol Sketches"; but the 

396 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

numbering began with iii. This letter was the first of Mr. Mitchell's 
writings to bear the signature " Ik Marvel.") 
Capitol Sketches. Morning Courier and New York Enquirer, 
Unnumbered. December 24. 
No. iii. December 29. 

No. iv. December 31. 

1847 

Capitol Sketches. Morning Courier and New York Enquirer. 

No. v. January 7. 

No. vi. January 12. 

No. vii. January 16. 

No. viii. January 23. 

No. ix. February 3. 

No. x. February 10. 

No. xi. February 26. 

No. xii. April 17. 

No. xiii. April 28. 
The Marvel Letters — New Series. Morning Courier and New York Enquirer. 
Fourteen letters published as under: 

From Saratoga, July 21, 28, 29, August 5, 9, io, 18, 19. 

From Sharon Pavilion, August 25. 

From Sharon, September 1. 

From Richfield Springs, September 7. 

From Trenton Falls, September 11. 

From Avon Springs, New York, September 29. 

From Astor House, October 15. 

Rural Notices Abroad. Cultivator. 

No. i. Royal Veterinary School at Alfort. Agricultural Implements 

of France. (January), 4.12. 
No. ii. Rome and its Environs. (February), 46. 
No. iii. The Campagna about Rome. (April), 107. 
No. iv. Italian Agriculture. (May), 139. 
No. v. Tuscan Agriculture. (June), 188. 
No. vi. Lombardy. (July), 222. 
No. vii. French Farming. (September), 269. 
No. viii. A French Village. (October), 306. 
No. ix. Wines and Vineyards of France. (November), 337. 
No. x. Wines of France. (December), 371. 

Notes by the Road. 

No. v. The Illyrian Cavern. American Review (January), 5.17-25. 

Landscape Gardening. American Review (March), 5.295-306. 

Fresh Gleanings. New York. Harper & Brothers. The first edition of 
this book was issued in two forms — the one in two volumes with paper 
covers; the other in one volume cloth. A long and appreciative notice of 
the volume was published in the American Review (August), 6.208-217. 
It was probably written by George H. Colton. 

397 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

1848 

Le Petit Soulier. Graham's Magazine (March), 165-171. 
The Marvel Letters from Abroad. Morning Courier and New York Enquirer. 
Thirty letters form this series. They were printed first in the daily, later 
in the weekly and the semiweekly, editions. The numbering of the letters 
as published is not accurate. In the list below, the number originally 
printed before each letter is given without correction. The date following 
the title of each letter is that of the issue of the daily edition in which it 
appears. 

No. i. From London. No subtitle. June 29. 

No. ii. London. The Chartists. July 3. 

No. iii. Paris. Character and Evidences of the Change in France. 

July 11. 
Unnumbered. Paris. The Four Days of June. July 14. 
No. v. Paris. After the Insurrection. July 14. 
Unnumbered. Paris. Causes and Abettors of the Revolt of June. 

July 27. 
No. vii. Paris. A Street View. July 31. 

Unnumbered. Paris. No subtitle, but dated July 13th and 18th, 1848. 
July 31. 

The French not Fit for a Republic. August 5. 
Faits Divers. August 8. 
No subtitle. August 18. 
No subtitle. August 22. 

The Elements of Discord: the Italian Question. 
August 29. 

No subtitle. September 12. 
The Italian Question. September 13. 
The Constitution and the Siege. September 27. 
The Approaching Elections. October 3. 
The Elections. October 7. 
The Election. October 12. 
Another Street View. October 18. 
Threatenings. October 20. 
A Storm in the Assembly. October 21. 
A Glance at the Assembly. October 27. 
Pictures from the Provinces. December 5. 
Fete of Constitution. December 13. 
Unnumbered. Paris. Glimpse at the French Chamber. December 29. 
A Man Overboard. By Ik Marvel. Southern Literary Messenger (January), 

14.10-11. 
A Ride in the Rain. By Ik Marvel. Ibid. (April), 14.209-21 1. 

1849 

The Marvel Letters from Abroad. Morning Courier and New York Enquirer. 
No. xxvii. Paris. Days of Election. January 4. 
No. xxviii. Paris. Talk of the Day. January 12. 
No. xxix. Paris. The Change. January 19. 
No. xxx. A Closing Glimpse at the Present and the Past. February 10. 

398 



No. 


ix. 


Paris. 


No. 


viii. 


Paris. 


No. 


X. 


Paris. 


No. 


xi. 


Paris. 


No. 


xii. 


Paris. 


No. 


xiii. 


Paris. 


No. 


xiv. 


Paris. 


No. 


XV. 


Paris. 


No. 


xvi. 


Paris. 


No. 


xvii. 


Paris. 


No. 


xviii. 


Paris. 


No. 


xiv. 


Paris. 


No. 


xix. 


Paris. 


No. 


XX. 


Paris. 


No. 


xxi. 


Paris. 


No. 


xxii. 


Paris. 


No. 


xxiii. 


Paris. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The Streets. By Ik Marvel. An extract from the as yet unpublished Battle 

Summer. Southern Literary Messenger (August), 15.499-501. 
Ik Marvel at Home. A letter from Newport, Rhode Island, dated September 

4th, 1849. Morning Courier and New York Enquirer, September 12. 
A Bachelor's Reverie. By Ik Marvel. (The three parts, Smoke — Blaze — 

Ashes.) Southern Literary Messenger (September), 15.601-609. 
City and Salon. By Ik Marvel. Another extract from the unpublished 

Battle Summer. Ibid. (December), 15.722-724. 

1850 

The Battle Summer. New York. Baker & Scribner. This book is not made 
up of the letters contributed to the Courier and Enquirer, but of material 
relating to an earlier period than that covered by those letters. The book 
went on the market December 21st, 1849, but bore date of 1850 on title- 
page. 

A Bachelor's Reverie. Over Sea-coal and Anthracite. By Ik Marvel. 
Southern Literary Messenger (March), 16. 1 62-171. 

A Bachelor's Reverie. Reprint from the Southern Literary Messenger of Sep- 
tember 1849, in large octavo, 40 pages. Privately printed by George Wym- 
berley Jones, at Wormsloe, near Savannah, Georgia. Twelve copies only 
were issued. Colophon in Old English. 

The Lorgnette. A series of yellow-covered pamphlets. The numbers of the 
first series are dated January 20, 30, February 7, 14, 21, 28, March 7, 14, 28, 
April 4, II, and 24, respectively. Those of the second series, May 10, 25, 
June 10, 24, July 8, 20, August 4, 18, 31, September 11, 25, and October 9, 
respectively. Henry Kernot was ostensibly the publisher to the end of the 
first series. The second series bore the imprint of Stringer & Townsend, 
New York. Within the year the two series were issued in book form, two 
volumes, by Stringer & Townsend. The illustrations were by F. O. C. 
Darley; tail-pieces by Donald G. Mitchell. 

The Roman Girl. By Ik Marvel. Southern Literary Messenger (December), 
16.717-719. 

Reveries of a Bachelor. New York. Baker & Scribner. This volume in- 
cluded material previously printed in the Southern Literary Messenger; 
the remainder had not been published before. 

1851 
A New Preface to the fourth edition of The Lorgnette. In this preface, signed 

Ik Marvel, the authorship of the work was first virtually acknowledged. 
Editor's Easy Chair. Harper's Magazine. 
(October), 3.707-709. 
(November), 849-851. 
(December), 4.131-133. 
Dream Life. New York. Charles Scribner. 

1852 
Editor's Easy Chair. Harper's Magazine. 
(January), 4.265-267. 
(February), 418-420. 
(March), 563-565- 

399 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

(April), 702-704. 

(May), 843-847. 

(June), 5.126-131. 

(July), 265-270. 

(August), 411-416. 

(September), 552-557- 

(October), 702-705. 

(November), 842-847. 

(December), 6.128-132. 
The Fudge Papers: Being the Observations at Home and Abroad of Divers 
Members of the Fudge Family. Rendered into Writing by Tony Fudge. 
Knickerbocker Magazine. 

(January), 3948-56. 

(February), 163-170. 

(April), 352-359. 

(May), 448-456. 

(July), 40.56-64. 

(August), 143-151- 

(October), 308-314. 

(December), 512-525. 

1853 
Editor's Easy Chair. Harper's Magazine. 

(January), 6.269-275. 

(February), 419-422. 

(March), 558-562. 

(April), 703-706. 

(May), 847-850. 

(June), 7.129-133. 

(July), 272-273. 

(August), 418-420. 

(September), 556-561. 
The Fudge Papers. Knickerbocker Magazine. 

(January), 41.1-10. 

(May), 426-433. 

(June), 529-536. 

(September), 42.274-281. 

(December), 567-573. 

1854 
The Fudge Papers. Knickerbocker Magazine. 

(February), 43-I23-I33- 

(March), 286-292. 

(May), 452-456. 

(June), 580-586. 

(July), 44-50-57- 

(September), 227-234. 

(October), 337-354- 

(November), 460-477. 
Studies for a Picture of Venice. Harper's Magazine (July), 9. 186-196. 

4OO 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

i855 

Fudge Doings. A reissue of The Fudge Papers in two volumes. New York. 
Charles Scribner. 

Some Account of a Consulate. Harper's (April), 10.628-639. 

A Dessert Dish for Travellers. Ibid. (July), 11.242-246. 

The Bride of the Ice-King. A Tale printed in The Knickerbocker Gallery: 
A Testimonial to [L. Gaylord Clark] the Editor of The Knickerbocker 
Magazine, 39-57. New York. Samuel Hueston. 348 Broadway. 

1857 
Two Days on the Erie Road. Harper's (February), 14.398-400. 
Mr. Quigley's Experience. Ibid. (July), 15.203-207. 

1858 

Agricultural Address. Delivered before the Connecticut State Agricultural 
Society, at Bridgeport, October 15th, 1857. Published by the Society, 
1858. 

Address at Twenty -fifth Anniversary of Alpha Delta Phi, June 25th, 1857. 
Printed in Alpha Delta Phi, 14-37. 

1859 

Mr. Sharply Again. Harper's (March), 18.522-525. 

Bi-Centennial Address. Given on the Green, Norwich, Connecticut, Sep- 
tember 8. First printed in The Norwich Jubilee, compiled and published 
by John W. Stedman, Norwich, 1859. 

i860 
Hints About Farming. New Englander (November), 18.889-907. 

1863 

My Farm of Edgewood. New York. Charles Scribner. 
Wet Weather Work. Atlantic Monthly. 

(April), 11.444-454. 

(June), 719-730. 

(August), 12.183-194. 

(November), 617-625. 
A New Preface to Reveries of a Bachelor. 
A New Preface to Dream Life. September. 

1864 

Wet Weather Work. Atlantic Monthly. 

(March), 13.304-312. 

(May), 539-550. 

(July), 14.39-51. 

(September), 333*347 • 
Washington Irving. Ibid. (June), 13.694-701. 
Seven Stories. New York. Charles Scribner. 

401 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



1865 



Pomologists and Common People. Horticulturist, January. 

Lackland Makes a Beginning. Ibid., March. 

Lackland 's House Plans. Ibid., May. 

Lackland's Gardener. Ibid., July. 

A Pig and a Cow. Ibid., August. 

On Gateways. Ibid., September. 

Gateways Again; and Rural Carpentry. Ibid., October. 

Village and Country Roadside. Ibid., November. 

Doctor Johns. Atlantic Monthly. 

(February), 15.141-151. 

(March), 296-308. 

(April), 449-467. 

(May), 591-602. 

(June), 681-692. 

(July), 16.66-77. 

(August), 211-221. 

(September), 300-310. 

(October), 457-468. 

(November), 546-556. 

(December), 713-723. 
Wet Days at Edgeivood. New York. Charles Scribner. The Wet Weathei 
Work papers from the Atlantic, in book form. 

1866 
Doctor Johns. Atlantic Monthly. 

(January), 17.69-80. 

(February), 204-214. 

(March), 323"333- 

(April), 466-478. 

(May), 552-564. 

(June), 707-720. 
On Not Doing All at Once. Horticulturist, January. 
De Rebus Ruris. Hours at Home. 

No. 1. An Old Style Farm. (June), 3.101-108. 

No. 2. English and American Wayside. (July), 197-205. 

No. 3. Mr. Urban and Fifty Acres. (August), 347-354. 

No. 4. Fifty Acres Again: A Commission of Inquiry. (September), 
447-454. 

No. 5. A Country House. (November), 4.1-7. 
Doctor Johns. New York. Charles Scribner and Company. In two vol- 
umes. Reprinted from the Atlantic. 

1867 
De Rebus Ruris. Hours at Home. 

No. 6. On the Laying Out of Grounds. (February), 4.306-313. 
No. 7. Village Greens and Railway Gardens. (March), 429-436. 
No. 8. Parks, Gardens, and Graves. (April), 538-544. 

402 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

A Talk About Porches. Horticulturist, March. 

Rural Studies. New York. Charles Scribner & Co. The Horticulturist and 
the Hours at Home papers in book form. 



1868 

A Talk About the Year. Atlantic Almanac. In 1868 the names of Oliver 
Wendell Holmes and Donald G. Mitchell appear as editors of the Almanac. 
Winter Talk, 15-17. 
Spring Talk, 31-33. 
Summer Talk, 35-37. 
Autumn Talk, 53-57. 
Our Heading and Our Hopes. This unsigned article is Mr. Mitchell's initial 
editorial in the first number of Hearth and Home, December 26. 

1869 

Pictures of Edgewood. New York. Charles Scribner and Company. 
Hearth and Home. Mr. Mitchell's chief contribution to this journal, apart 
from his regular editorial work, was a series of papers entitled "Wilkerson's 
Journal," the diary and observations of one "Abijah Wilkerson." In a 
note Mr. Mitchell says: "I thought seriously of extending and publishing 
[the "Journal"] in book form. I still regard it (1902) as one of the best 
things I ever did." The instalments of "Wilkerson's Journal" appeared 
as follows: 

January 23. 

February 6, 13, 27. 

March 6, 13, 20, 27. 

April 3, 10, 24. 

May 1, 8, 15, 22, 29. 

June 5, 12, 19. 

July 3, 10, 17, 24, 31. 

August 7, 14, 21, 28. 

September 4, n, 18, 25. 

October 9, 16, 23, 30. 

November 6, 13, 20, 27. 

December 11, 18, 25. 

The articles marked * constitute a gleaning from unsigned editorial matter 
which was doubtless written by Mr. Mitchell: 

* A Farmer's House, January 2. 

* A New Year's Talk. 

* Valentine Day, February 13. 

* A Library Window, February 20. 

* Something About School-Books. 

* Of School-Rooms, February 27. 

* Mammon Overrides Charity, March 6. 

* Our Advisers, March 13. 

* Forbidden Topics Which Interest Everybody, March 27. 

* Another Library Window, May 1. 

403 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

* Mr. Raymond, July 3. 

* Octave Feuillet, July 10. 

* Amused With Cost, July 17. 

* New Englandism and Oldtown Folks, July 24. 

* John Stuart Mill, August 14. 

* At the Springs: Saratoga, August 28. 

* Something Besides Gold, October 9. 

* Autumn Search for Homes, November. 6. 

* What Does Social Science Mean ? November 13. 

* Mr. Greeley as Woodsman, November 20. 

* George Peabody. 

* A Thanksgiving, November 27. 

* A Year's End, December 18. 

* A Flavor of Christmas, December 25. 

Articles in Atlantic Almanac. This year Mr. Mitchell alone edited the 
Almanac. 

Fireside, 3-7. 
Roadside, 16-20. 
Brookside, 25-28. 
Side by Side, 37-40. 

1870 

Wilkerson's Journal. Hearth and Home. 
January 1, 15, 22, 29. 
February 19, 26. 
March 5, 12, 19, 26. 
April 2, 9, 16, 23, 30. 
May 21, 28. 
June 11, 18. 
July 9, 16, 23, 30. 
August 6, 20, 27. 
September 10, 17, 24. 

* Anno Domini, January 1. 

* Edwin M. Stanton, January 8. 

* Dictionaries. 

* Queen Victoria. 

* Town and Country Roads, March 12. 

* A Plea for Flowers, April 2. 

* Road-side Trees, April 23. 

* Thomas Carlyle, May 28. 

* Death of Mr. Dickens, June 25. 

* Reminiscences of Mr. Dickens, July 2. 

* The Fourth, July 9. 

* A Word About Athletic Sports, July 16. 

* The War, August 27. 

* France, September 24. 

* Thomas Hughes. 

Charles Dickens. Hours at Home (August), 11.363-368. 

404 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



1871 



On Some of the Relations of Science to Farm Practice. An address before the 
American Dairymen's Association, at Utica, New York, January nth. 
Sixth Annual Report of the Association, 59-74. 

1873 

Who Wrote the Arabian Nights ? St. Nicholas, November. 
How a Tinker Wrote a Novel. Ibid., December. 

1874 

Christmas Angels. St. Nicholas, January. 
About Some Queer Little People. Ibid., March. 
Who Printed the First Bible? Ibid., April. 
Nice Old Gentleman. Ibid., June. 
Fifty Pounds Reward ! Ibid., September. 

1875 
Dark Bit of History. St. Nicholas, November. 

1876 

Fences and Division of Farm Land. An address before the Connecticut 
Board of Agriculture, West Winsted, Connecticut, December 16th, 1875. 
Ninth Annual Report of the Secretary of the Connecticut Board of Agri- 
culture, 1 71-186. Hartford, 1876. 

1877 

The Farmer's Homestead, and its Relation to Farm Thrift. An address before 
the State Board of Agriculture, Worcester, Massachusetts, November 15th, 
1876. Twenty-fourth Annual Report of the Secretary of the State Board of 
Agriculture, 131-141. Boston, 1877. 
Ivanhoe. St. Nicholas, May. 
Two French Story-Tellers. Ibid., October. 
About Old Story-Teller s. New York. Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 

The frontispiece is from a photograph of Mr. Mitchell's son, James Alfred 
Mitchell. 
A Series of Agricultural Articles. Semi-Weekly edition New York Tribune, 
August to October. A few titles of articles as under: 
Help in the Spade. 
The Potato Beetle's Progress. 
Government Supervision. 
Not Wholly Unconnected with Beans. 
Asking Advice. 
About Advice Once More. 
The Colorado Beetle in England. 

405 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Woman-Farming. 

Some Good in Bad Times. 

"Mons. Tonson Come Again!" 

"Be Steady" — Some Thoughts of an Old-Fashioned Virtue. 

1881 

A Series of Agricultural Articles. All are signed, "By Jno. Crowquill." 
Semi- Weekly edition New York Tribune, August to December. A few titles 
of articles as under: 

A Townsman's Inclinations. 
Premiums for Poles. 
Our Farm Thanksgiving. 
Christmas in the Country. 
Our Country Roads. 

1882 

From Lobby to Peak. A series of illustrated articles in Our Continent, as 
under: 

On the Threshold. (February 15), 1.5. 

A Lobby. (February 22), 21. 

Halls. (March 1), 37. 

An Early Breakfast. (March 15), 69. 

Round About the Room. (March 22), 85. 

Round About Again. (March 29), 101. 

Over the Mantel. (April 5), 117. 

In the Library. (April 12), 132. 

Between Rooms. (April 19), 148. 

A Library Corner. (May 3), 185. 

A Rolling Screen. (May 17), 217. 
Yale Forty Years Ago. Our Continent (February 22), 25. 
A Report to the Commissioners on Lay-out of East Rock Park. New Haven. 
L. S. Punderson, Printer and Lithographer. 

1883 

The Woodbridge Record. Privately printed. 
Daniel Tyler. A Memorial Volume. Privately printed. 
A New Preface to Reveries of a Bachelor. August. 
A New Preface to Dream Life. September. 
Prefatory Note to Wet Days at Edgewood. 
Dedication of Doctor Johns. Thanksgiving Day. 

1884 

Washington Irving Centennial Address. Given at Tarrytown-on-Hudson, 
New York, April 3d, 1883. First printed in the Centennial Volume, New 
York, 1884. 

Bound Together. New York. Charles Scribner's Sons. 

Out-of-Town Places. A reissue of Rural Studies. New York. Charles 
Scribner's Sons. 

406 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

1885 

Lord Macaulay. An introductory sketch for an edition of the Lays of An- 
dent Rome. Boston. Rand, Avery & Co. 

1888 
About Some Christmas Pictures. The Book Buyer, 5445-449. 

1889 

English Lands, Letters, and Kings. From Celt to Tudor. New York. Charles 

Scribner's Sons. 
A Scattering Shot at Some Ruralities. Scribner's (October), 6.507-512. 
Fifty Years Progress in Literature. Address at Fiftieth Anniversary of 

Alpha Delta Phi, May 16th, 1882. Printed in Alpha Delta Phi (1889), 

11-20. 

1890 

English Lands, Letters, and Kings. From Elizabeth to Anne. New York. 

Charles Scribner's Sons. 
The Country House. Scribner's (September), 8.313-335. Later included 

in the volume, Homes in City and Country, New York. Charles Scribner's 

Sons. 1893.* 

1891 

Paraphrase of Horace iv. 7 — To Torquatus. Verse. Scribner's (March), 
9.350. 

1892 

Looking Back at Boyhood. Youth's Companion, April 21. Reprinted in 
booklet form at The Academy Press, Norwich, Conn., June 1906. 

1894 
The Story of a Coffee Pot. Outlook (April 7th), 623-624. 

1895 

At Yale Sixty Years Ago. An article prepared for the literary syndicate, 
Bacheller, Johnson & Bacheller. Published in many newspapers. 

English Lands, Letters, and Kings. Queen Anne and the Georges. New York. 
Charles Scribner's Sons. 

1897 

American Lands and Letters. The Mayflower to Rip Van Winkle. New York. 

Charles Scribner's Sons. 
English Lands, Letters, and Kings. The Later Georges to Victoria. New 

York. Charles Scribner's Sons. 
The Season's Greeting. The Breeder's Gazette, December 15. 

407 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

1898 

An Introduction to the Library of Household Classics. New York. Double- 
day & McClure Co. 

An Introduction to the International Library of Famous Literature. New 
York. Merrill & Baker. 

1899 

American Lands and Letters. Leather Stocking to Poe's Raven. New York. 
Charles Scribner's Sons. 

1902 

Woodbridge Hall Dedicatory Address. Given October 23d, 1901. Pub- 
lished in the Volume Commemorating the Two Hundredth Anniversary of 
the Founding of Yale University. New Haven. 1902. 

1907 

Prefatory. The Edgewood Edition of The Works of Donald G. Mitchell. 
New York. Charles Scribner's Sons. 



408 



PORTRAITS OF MR. MITCHELL 

Portraits of Mr. Mitchell were painted as follows: 

i. By Charles Loring Elliott, 1851. Owned by Donald G. Mitchell, 
New London, Conn. 

2. By Charles Noel Flagg, 1861. Owned by Mrs. Rebecca Mitchell 

Hart, New Haven, Conn. 

3. By G. Albert Thompson, 1899. Owned by Mrs. Susan Mitchell 

Hoppin. It hangs in the Donald G. Mitchell Memorial Library, 
New Haven. 

4. By Gari Melchers, 1901. Owned by Mrs. Mary Mitchell Ryerson, 

Chicago. 

5. By Katherine Abbot Cox, 1904. Owned by Mrs. Susan Mitchell 

Hoppin, New Haven, Conn. 

6. By John Ferguson Weir, 1907. Purchased by the Class of 1879, 

Yale College, and presented to Yale University. It hangs in the 
Dining Hall. 

7. By Eleanor Winslow, 191 8. Copy of the Cox portrait. Owned by 

the Mitchell sisters. It hangs in the Edgewood library. 



409 



INDEX 



INDEX 



Adam, Alexander, Latin grammar, 40 

iEschylus, Agamemnon quoted, 361 

Alden, Henry Mills, 369 

Alston, Susan, 240 

American Review, 152, 166, 169, 170, 

177, 180, 181, 396, 397; quoted, 101, 

117-118, 174 
Andy (favorite horse), 351-352 
Anthologies Palatini, 83 
Atlantic Almanac, 325, 403, 404 
Atlantic Monthly, 291, 292-293, 300, 

301, 302, 401, 402 
Austen, Philip H., sends verses to D. G. 

M.,7 

Bancroft, George, 243, 259, 369 
Barker, B. Fordyce, 211, 218, 369, 370- 

371, 375 
Barlow, Joel, 72 
Barnes, Mrs., D. G. M. boards with, 

181; 206 
Battery, 179 

Birge, Gen. Henry W., 287 
Blair, Gen. Frank, 40 
Bond, Wm. H., 211 
Boston Courier, 3 
Bowles, Samuel, 211 
Breeder's Gazette, 377, 407 
Brewster, Wm., 14 
Bridges, Robert, "Pater Filio," 29 
Brocklesby, John, Salathiel, 67 . 
Browne, Sir Thomas, 237 
Browning, Robert and Elizabeth, 248 
Bryant, Wm. Cullen, 3 
Buckingham, Gov. W. A., 287 
Buckner, Esther R., 339 
Bulwer, 1st Lord Lytton, 59; My Novel, 

251 
Bunyan, John, Pilgrim) 's Progress, 3 2, 3 78 
Burke, Edmund, 55, 59, 80, 148, 205, 320 
Bushnell, Horace, 55 
Byron, Lord, 141 



Campbell, Wm. W., 165 

Canadian Magazine, 237 

Carlyle, Thomas, 207, 358, 380 

Cass, Lewis, 201 

Cass, Lewis Jr., 166 

Cato, 81 

Chambers, Julius, tells of Reveries in 

Spain, 8 
Chapin, Dr., 66 
Chester, A. T., quoted, 20 
Chronicles of a Connecticut Farm, 21, 351 
Clarke, Christopher, presents cup to 

D. G. M. on behalf of New England 

Park Superintendents, 381 
Clay, Henry, 201 
Cleveland, Mrs. Grover, dedicatee third 

volume English Lands, 309 
Colburn's Arithmetic, 40 
Colton, George H., 169, 174, 177, 181; 

reads Poe's "Raven" to D. G. M., 

180 
Commercial Advertiser, 126, 173, 396 
Cooper, James Fenimore, 3, 59 
Courier and Enquirer, 166, 169, 177, 179, 

183, 187, 188, 189, 191-193, 194, 202, 

209, 211, 217, 218, 396, 397, 398, 399 
Cox, Katherine Abbot, 409 
Cultivator, D. G. M.'s contributions to, 

95-96, 105, 120, 122, 137-138, 396, 397 
Curtis, George Wm., 7, 226, 369; letter 

of condolence to Mr. and Mrs. D. G. 

M., 289 
Curwen, John, 375 
Cushing, Caleb, 258 

Daggett, David, 49, 50, 66 

Dana, Richard H., 55 

Day, Gad, 45 

Day, Jeremiah, 46 note, 47, 66, 72 

Democratic Review, 170, 257 

Dickens, Charles, Sketches by Boz, 83; 



413 



INDEX 



American Notes and Martin Chuzzle- 

tvit, 164; 369, 404 
Dixon, James, 167 
Dixon, Mrs. James, 167, 180 
Dodge, Mary Mapes, 369 
Doremus, Mrs. Estelle E., reports death 

of W. H. Huntington, 374-375 
Downing, A. J., 83, 254 
Dudley, Gov. Thomas, 19 
Diirr, Alphons, "Standard American 

Authors," 232 
Dwight, Timothy 1st, 17, 71-72 

Edgewood, 5, 6, 22, 30, 277, 278, 281, 
282, 283, 284, 285, 286, 288, 293, 297, 
298, 299, 300, 303, 306, 309, 311, 320, 
321, 323-325, 332, 333, 334-365 pas- 
sim, 366, 371, 376, 377, 378, 379, 387, 
389, 390, 391 

Edgewood Civic Association, makes D. 
G. M. first honorary member, 389 

Edgeworth, Maria, 37-38 

"Editor's Easy Chair," origin of, 226; 
D. G. M.'s contributions to, 399-400 

Edward III of England, 15 

Edwards, Gov. H. W., 66 

Edwards, Jonathan, 72 

Ellington School, 28-31, 34, 35, 39-41, 
86 

Elliott, Charles Loring, his portrait of 
D. G. M., 240, 409 

Elliott, Charles Wyllys, Book of Ameri- 
can Interiors, 348 

Ellsworth, Gov. W. W., 66 

Elze, Karl, 232 

Emerson, Joseph, 57, 310, 375 

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, quoted, 9; 
Representative Men, 3; "American 
Scholar" and "Divinity College Ad- 
dress," 54 

Ericsson, John, 179 

Euripides, D. G. M.'s translation of, 53- 

54 
Evenus, quoted, 83, 154; D. G. M.'s 
translation of, 83 note 

Flagg, Charles Noel, 409 
Folsom, Frances (Mrs. Grover Cleve- 
land), 309 
Forbes, Robert W., 129 



Gilman, Daniel C, 214, 369 

Goddard, Levi H., 75 

Goddard, Mary Perkins, 32, 33, 52, 73, 
75, 86, 87, 227, 228, 230, 231, 259, 
369; for D. G. M.'s letters to, see 
under "Mitchell, Donald G., (7) 
Letters" 

Goodrich, Chauncey A., 49 

Graham's Magazine, 181, 398 

Grant, Mrs. Arminal Toucey, 16 

Grant, Donald (great-grandfather D. G. 
M.), 16 

Grant, Hannah, 16 

Grant, Wm. H., 311 

Guyot, Arnold, 205 

Hall, John, of Ellington School, 28, 29, 

30,39 

Hamlen, B. L., 46, 58, 395 

Harkness Memorial Quadrangle at Yale, 
entry named for D. G. M., 3 19 

Harla.nd, Gen., 288 

Harper Brothers, 175, 176, 255 

Harper, Fletcher, 226 

Harper's Magazine, 225, 226, 239, 268, 
300,399,400,401 

Hart Children, 344 

Hart, Philip, 345 

Hart, Rebecca Mitchell (daughter D. G. 
M.), 339, 355, 409 

Hart, Walter T., 339 

Hauff, Wilhelm, 59 

Hawthorne, Julian, Nathaniel Hawthorne 
and his Wife, 291 note 

Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 7, 256, 257, 258, 
291, 369; Scarlet Letter, 3; letter to 
D. G. M., 298-299 

Hayne, Alston, 171 

Hayne, Arthur, 171 

Hayne, Paul Hamilton, 369 

Headley, Joel T., 215, 254 

Hearth and Home, 31, 311, 325; founding 
of, 305; D. G. M. edits, 305-308; in- 
itial editorial, 306-307; ownership 
changes, 308; failure of, 331; quoted, 
242; D. G. M.'s contributions to, 
403-404 

Hearts of Girlhood (D. G. M. considers 
writing), 229 

Hillhouse, James, 43 



414 



INDEX 



Historical Society (New London, Conn.), 

31,345 
Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 3, 54, 179, 403 
Home Journal (New York), 212 
Hoppin, James Mason, 339 
Hoppin, Susan Mitchell (daughter D. 

G. M.), 283, 339, 340, 363, 409 
Horace, "To Torquatus," D. G. M.'s 

translation, 407 
Horticulturist, 301, 402, 403 
Hours at Home, 301, 402, 403, 404 
Howells, Wm. Dean, 3, 226 
Humphreys, David, 72 
Huntington, Wm. Henry, 38-39, 209, 

231, 232; 265, 369, 371-372, 374-3755 

his letters to D. G. M., 217-218, 219- 

220, 296-297, 301, 373-374; for D. G. 

M.'s letters to, see "Mitchell, Donald 

G., (7) Letters" 

Ingersoll, Colin, 274, 275 

Irving, Washington, 3, 7, 87, 237, 274, 
3°9, 37 1 ; acknowledges dedication 
Dream Life, 228; with D. G. M. at 
Saratoga Springs, 239-241; entertains 
D. G. M. at Sunnyside, 254; D. G. M. 
writes of in Atlantic Monthly, 292-293 

James, Rev. Henry, 181, 369 

James, Henry Jr., 181 

Johns, Dr. Benjamin, referred to, 20, 22 

Johnson, Samuel, 310 

Johnson, W. S., 17 

Jones, George Wymberley, 399 

Judd, David M., 308 

Junius, Letters of, 79-80 

Kain, Dr. J. H., 46 

Keats, John, 24 

Kent's Commentaries, 48, 49 

Kernot, Henry, 210, 211, 219; diary let- 
ter of in regard to Lorgnette, 212-215 

Kimball, Arthur Reed, quoted, 313, 321 

Kimberly, Gen., 66 

Kingsley, James L., 49 

Knickerbocker Magazine, 83, 239, 248, 
268, 396, 400 

Lamb, Charles, 237 
Lancaster, Joseph, 39 
Lamed, Rev. Wm. A., 72 



Law, Stephen D., 375 

Lawler, James, his poem, "Ik Marvel," 
236-237 

Learned, Wm. Law, 227 note 

Les Miser able s, 350 

Lewis, Charles, 170 

V Illustration (Paris), 232 

Literary World (New York), 214, 221 

Longfellow, Henry W., 243, 369; Hia- 
watha, 3 ; Voices of the Night, 53-54 

Lowell, James Russell, Biglow Papers, 3 

Macaulay, Lord, 141, 407 

Mallet, David, quoted, 290 

Manning, Gov. Richard I., 254 

Marcy, W. L., 259, 264 

Marsh, George P., 167, 369; letter to 
D. G. M., 206 

Marsh, Mrs. George P., 167, 168, 170 

Marvel, Ik, adoption of pen-name, 166; 
probable origin of name, 167 

Marvell, Andrew, 167 

Matthews, Cornelius, 215 

Melchers, Gari, 359, 409 

Meyer, Carl, 232 

Milton, John, 7, 3 16 

Miscellany (Bentley's), 202 

Mitchell, Alfred (brother D. G. M.), 31, 
51, 52, 87, 178, 287, 332 

Mitchell, Rev. Alfred (father D. G. M.), 
18-23,28,31,36-37,50 

Mitchell, Donald G.— [(1) Chronolog- 
ical; (2) Characteristics; (3) Person- 
alia; (4) Religion; (5) Political Views; 
(6) Diaries and Note-books; (7) Let- 
ters; (8) His Books]— 

(1) Chronological, Events, Move- 
ments, etc. 

Ancestry, parentage, 13-24; relations, 
the family circle, 25-28, 31, 32-33, 

3^-37, 39, 41, 42, 50-53 

1822: birth, 23 

1825-1837: early impressions of home 
surroundings, 23-26, 36-39; at El- 
lington school, 28-35, 39-41; family 
life, 23-28, 30-33, 36-41; death of 
father, 31; early reading, 32-33, 37, 
38 

1837-1841: enters Yale, 42-45; details 



415 



INDEX 



of college life, 45-73 ; course of study 
and instructors, 48-50, 53-54, 71- 
72; connection with Yale Literary 
Magazine, 56-64; scholarship re- 
cord, 53; interest in literature, 53- 
64; membership in societies, 55-56; 
senior vacation, 64-65; description 
of Commencement, 65-67; valedic- 
tory oration, 67-71; graduation, 65, 
72; influence of Yale, 71-72; later 
opinion of Yale, 71-72 

1841-1844: retirement to Elmgrove, 
Salem, 74-75; life in the country, 
76-84; extracts from diary, 77-82; 
contributions to magazines, 82-83; 
study of agriculture, 76, 83-84; 
prize plans for farm buildings, 84; 
sudden termination of country life, 
84-85 

1844: sails for Liverpool, 86-87; con- 
sular clerk in Liverpool, 88-99 

1845: leaves Liverpool, 99; travel in 
England, 100-102; goes to Jersey, 
102-106; Jersey through England to 
Liverpool, 107-111; travel in Brit- 
ish Isles, 1 12-122; in France and 
Switzerland, 122-137 

1846: travel in Italy, 138-145; in Ger- 
many, etc., 145-148; sails from 
Havre for America, 151; details of 
voyage, 152-155; at Elmgrove, 163; 
in Washington, D. C, 163-166 

1847: in Washington, D. C, 167-171; 
southern travel, 1 71-172; publica- 
tion Fresh Gleanings, 174-177; 
northern travel, 178; law study, 
178-180 

1848: the law, 181-182; friends in New 
York City, 180-181; gives lecture, 
182; off to Paris and reports Revolu- 
tion of 1848, 183-205; state of mind 
while abroad, 189-190, 194-205 

1849: last months in Paris, 200-205; 
return to America, 205-206; studies 
law and writes Battle Summer, 206- 
209 

1850: edits Lorgnette, 209-224; publi- 
cation Reveries of a Bachelor, 224- 
226; sells Salem farm, 237 

1851: begins "Editor's Easy Chair" 



for Harper's Magazine, 226; writing 
and publication Dream Life, 227- 
228; success of Reveries and Dream 
Life, 229-232 

1852: goes to Saratoga Springs to see 
Washington Irving and meets Mary 
Pringle, 239-242 

1853 : his engagement to Miss Pringle, 
245; his letters to her, 249-259; ap- 
pointed consul to Venice, 256, 259; 
marriage, 259; off to Liverpool, 259; 
European travel, 260-261; in Ven- 
ice, 262-264 

1854: resigns consulate, 264; residence 
in Paris, 265-268; birth of first 
child, 266; friends in Paris, 265 

1855: literary work (1853-1855), 268; 
return to America, 268-269; finding 
and purchase of Edgewood, 273-278 

1856-1908: life at Edgewood, 279-391, 
passim 

1861-1865: anxieties of Civil War 
period, 286-297 

1865: appointed member Advisory 
Council, Yale Art School 

1 868- 1 870: edits Hearth and Home, 
305-308 

1876: designs Connecticut Building 
for Centennial Exposition, 312 

1878: appointed additional commis- 
sioner to Paris Universal Exposi- 
tion, 312; Yale conferred LL.D. de- 
gree, 357 

1882: report on East Rock Park, New 
Haven 

1884: lectures on literature, Yale Col- 
lege 

1 901: address at dedication Wood- 
bridge Hall, Yale, 379-381 

1906-1907: preparation Edgewood 
edition of Works, 386-387 

1908: death, 390-391 

(2) Characteristics 

Courage and persistency, 3, 323-333; 
closeness of observation, 100, 105; 
habit of reverie, 382-385; humor, 
79, 93, 100, 148, 208-224, 249- 
250, 358-360, 386; individuality 
marked, 4-5; love of beauty, 7, 9, 



416 



INDEX 



298, 313, 315-322; love of home, 
334~3 6 S; l° ve of nature, 36, 52-53, 
76, 81-83, 95-96, 103-104, 137-138, 
153, 160, 189-190, 201-202, 266, 
279-285; modesty, 232, 356-358; 
Puritan and Cavalier qualities, 7; 
purity, 361-362; retiring nature, I, 
55, 84, 85, 162-163, 164, 178, 179- 
180, 366-368; sensitiveness, 1, 24, 
28, 29, 34, 50, 64, 153-154, 198-200, 
204-205, 207, 252, 256; serenity, 
363-365, 376-378; sharpness of 
memory, 24, 381-382; sincerity, 2, 
233-234, 258, 369; strength of 
friendship, 366-375; tranquilizing 
quality, 8-9 

(3) Personalia 

Varied interests, 2, 3 1 1-3 13, 350-351; 
avoiding callers, 346-347; "call- 
ing," 368; pride in ancestry, 14-15; 
"passion of the past," 24, 34, 204- 
205, 381-382; drawing, 33, 260; 
dealings with children, 5, 340-344; 
country drives, 52, 76, 85, 378, 389; 
furnishing room at college, 53; 
flowers, 5, 20, 36, 96, 101 note, 104, 
127, 137, 250, 251, 253, 273, 276, 
278, 279, 285, 320, 332, 334, 336, 
348, 353-356, 364, 366, 377, 390; 
health, 2, 50, 53, 67, 73, 85, 96, 97, 
99, 103, 105, 121, 155, 159, 161, 163, 
170, 178, 181, 194, 196, 325-326, 
328, 331; dress, 240; eyes, 100, 240; 
personal appearance, 240, 350; rus- 
tic woodwork, 350; map-making, 
350-351; pets, 351-352; wood- 
chopping, 373-374, 378; portraits 
of, 240, 359-360, 409 

(4) Religion 

Strongly individual, 5; Puritan ele- 
ment, 7, 25, 361; Woolsey's influ- 
ence at Yale, 72; unpleasant mem- 
ories of early religious training, 24- 
25, 26-28, 37; comments, 120, 143- 
144, 250, 255, 302-303; dislike of 
affectation in pulpit, 258; increas- 
ing simplicity of, 382-383; religious 
musings, 383-385, 389; verses on 



Psalm 127: 2 which came to him in 
sleep, 385 

(5) Political Views 

Deliberate retirement from politics, 
5-6, 294; references to civil govern- 
ment, 68-69, 80, 126, 144-148, 183, 
184-185, 200; refuses nomination 
for governorship of Connecticut, 
6-7; references to party politics, 94, 
95, 128, 136, 168, 170, 201-202, 259; 
observations in Washington, D. C, 
163, 257-259; comment on France 
(1848), 191-193; opinions on Civil 
War, 289-296 

(6) Diaries and Note-Books 

Mentioned, 76, 83, 123, 128, 132, 173; 
quoted, 6, 77-82, 84, 108-111, 112- 
114, 119, 120, 123, 132, 138-140, 
143-144, 145, 146-149, 150-152, 
153, 154, 155, 161-162, 174, 301, 
304, 309-310, 323, 367; random 
notes quoted, 23-24, 25-28, 29, 71- 
72, 72, 171-172, 229, 279, 291, 309, 
358, 361-362, 364, 366, 367, 368, 
381-382, 383-385, 386 

(7) Letters 

To Mary Goddard, 89-91, 93-94, 99, 
103-105, 106, 107-108, 112, 123- 
128, 129-132, 133-137, I4I-H3, 
160, 163, 164-165, 167-171, 176- 
177, 178, 179-180, 181-182, 187, 
188-189, 190, 193, 194-196, 197- 
200, 201-205, 242-243, 245-246, 
247, 261-264, 265-266, 267-268, 

275 
To sons of John Hall: 30 
To Harper and Brothers: 175-176 
To Philip Hart (grandson): 345 
To Nathaniel Hawthorne: 291 note 
To Susan Mitchell Hoppin (daugh- 
ter): 340, 363 
To Wm. Henry Huntington: 216-217, 
218-219, 292, 293-296, 301-302, 
303-304, 305, 312, 326-327, 329- 
330,331,362,374 
To Donald G. Mitchell (son) : 333 , 345 
To Elizabeth Mitchell (daughter) : 101 



417 



INDEX 



note, 233 note, 332, 343, 345"346, 
355, 358, 379 
To Harriet Mitchell (daughter): 334, 

365 
To Mary Pringle Mitchell (wife) : 244- 
245, 247-248, 249-259, 274, 327- 
329, 338, 356-357, 362 
To Walter Mitchell (uncle): 120-122, 

159, 162-163, 172-173 
To James B. Olcott: 282 
To Julia C. G. Piatt: 308-309, 370 
To Wm. B. Pringle: 260, 266-267 
To Mary Mitchell Ryerson (daugh- 
ter): 15 
To Charles Scribner (son of founder) : 

332-333, 379, 386, 387 
To Gen. Wm. Williams (guardian): 
59-64, 88-89, 91-93, 94-95, 96-99, 
102-103, 106, ui-112, 114-117, 
128, 129, 137, 138, 144-145, 146, 
149-150, 159, 161, 162, 182, 200-201 

(8) His Books [Consult the Bibliog- 
raphy, pp. 395-408, for Additional 
Information] 

Fresh Gleanings : writing and publica- 
tion of, 174-177; mentioned, 102, 
386, 397; quoted, 74, 86, 103, 152 

Battle Summer: writing and publica- 
tion of, 206-207; criticism of, 207; 
mentioned, 209, 215, 399 

Lorgnette: publication of, 209-224; in 
Kernot's diary, 212-214; men- 
tioned, 399; quoted, 13, 183-184, 
208, 215, 215-216, 220-224, 224, 
225, 389 

Reveries of a Bachelor: writing and 
publication of, 224-226; mentioned, 
3, 4, 7, 8, 23, 28, 29, 34, 75, 153, 218, 
227, 228, 229, 230, 231, 232, 233, 

234, 237, 239, 243, 249, 250, 399, 
401, 406; quoted, 29, 53, 21 1, 225, 
232-233, 235-236, 239, 286, 337, 
338-339, 363, 376 

Dream Life: writing and publication 
of, 226-229; mentioned, 4, 23, 25, 
34, 47, 74, 75, 178, 232, 233, 234, 

235, 237, 239, 244, 339, 399, 401, 

41 



406; quoted, 13, 42, 159, 208, 228, 

229, 233, 234, 236, 390 
Fudge Doings: 239, 248, 255, 268, 371, 

400-401; quoted, 14-15 
My Farm of Edgewood: 282, 300, 335, 

401; quoted, 86, 273, 275-278, 279, 

279-280, 281, 283-284, 284-285, 

340-341, 349, 353-355 
Seven Stories: 107, 112, 206, 300, 371, 

401; quoted, 265 
Wet Days at Edgewood: 2, 80, 1 1 1, 300, 

402; quoted, 299-300 
Dr. Johns : writing and publication of, 

301-304; proscribed (1866) preface 

of, 302-303; its sale, 303-304; its 

historical value, 304; mentioned, 

23, 25, 374, 402 
Out-of-Town Places (Rural Studies): 

76, 284, 300-301, 403, 406; quoted, 

74, 85, 280, 280-281, 283, 284, 290, 

319-320, 321-322 
Pictures of Edgewood: 284, 403 
About Old Story Tellers: 23, 32, 330, 

405 

Daniel Tyler : 406 

Woodbridge Record: 15, 406 

Bound Together, 23, 31, 264, 313, 406; 
quoted, 1, 34, 336 

English Lands, Letters, and Kings: 
writing of, 308-309; purpose of, 
309-311; value of, 3 10-3 11; men- 
tioned, 55, 370, 378, 407; quoted, 
118-119 

American Lands and Letters: writing 

of, 308; mentioned, 32, 298, 311, 

378, 408; quoted, 54, 55, 71, 180, 

256, 346 

Mitchell, Donald G. (son D. G. M.), 

333, 339, 344-345, 409 

Mitchell, Donald G. (uncle D. G. M.), 

18 
Mitchell, Elizabeth (daughter D. G. 

M.), 55, 101 note, 233 note, 332, 339, 

345-346, 355, 356, 357, 358, 379 
Mitchell, Elizabeth (sister D. G. M.), 

5i, 73, 86 
Mitchell, Harriet (daughter D. G. M.), 

334, 339, 379 

Mitchell, Hesse Alston 1st (daughter 
D. G. M.), 287, 288-289, 293, 339, 363 



INDEX 



Mitchell, Hesse Alston 2d (daughter D. 

G. M.), 339, 355, 379 
Mitchell, James (great-grandfather D. 

G. M.), 15-16 
Mitchell, James Alfred (son D. G. M.), 

339, 342, 343, 363, 364, 39i 
Mitchell, Louis (brother D. G. M.), 50, 

51, 52, 87, 265, 287-288, 366; letters 

to Mary Goddard, 230-232 
Mitchell, Lucretia (sister D. G. M.), 51, 

86 
Mitchell, Pringle (son D. G. M.), 339, 

363, 393 
Mitchell, Stephen (brother D. G. M.), 

42,51 
Mitchell, Stephen Mix (grandfather D. 

G. M.), 16-18 
Mitchell, Walter L. (son D. G. M.), 339, 

343 
Mitchell, Walter (uncle D. G. M.), 120- 

122, 162-163, 172-173 
Mix, Rebecca (great-grandmother D. G. 

M.), 16 
Mix, Rev. Stephen, 16 
Moniteur (Paris), 232 
More, Paul Elmer, 54 
Morse, S. F. B., paints portrait Judge 

Mitchell, 17 
Mowrer, Kathrin, 339 
Mumford, Elizabeth, 14, 75 
Mumford, John and Lucretia, 21-22 

Nation (New York), 311 

National Intelligencer, 168, 170 

New Englander, 83, 300, 318, 396, 401 

New England Review (weekly), 32 

Newton, Sir Isaac, 59 

North American Review, 82-83, 396 

Olcott, James B., 282 
Olmstead, Denison, 46 note, 47, 49 
Osborn, Laughton, 213-214 
O'Sullivan, John, editor Democratic Re- 
view, 170 
Overbury, Sir Thomas, quoted, 14-15 

Paley's Natural Theology, 48, 49 
Parker, Rev. Robert, 13 
Parker, Sara, 13 
Pattison, Mark, 32 



Paulding, J. K., 215 

Percival, James G., 72 

Perkins, Elias, 31 

Perkins, Henry, 31, 32, 94, 128 

Perkins, Jacob, 46 

Perkins, Mary, see Goddard 

Perkins, Mary E., Chronicles of a Con- 
necticut Farm, 21, 351 

Perkins, Nathaniel Shaw, 31 

Petrarch, 141 

Piatt, Mrs. J. C. G. (daughter Mary 
Perkins Goddard), 308-309, 367, 370 

Pierce, Franklin, 256 

Polk, James K., 92, 94, 95, 136, 165, 
167 

Porter, President Noah, 66, 72 

Porter, Rev. Noah, 66 

Press (of Christchurch, New Zealand), 
containing Sir Robert Stout's article 
on Reveries and Dream Life, 235 note 

Pringle, Mary Frances (wife D. G. M.), 
meets D. G. M. at Saratoga Springs, 
240-241; courtship, 242-259; engage- 
ment, 245; marriage, 259; mentioned, 
261, 263, 266, 267, 273, 282, 297, 337- 
339, 356, 360, 376, 391; death of, 364- 
365; letter to D. G. M., 339; D. G. 
M.'s letters to, 244-245, 247-248, 249- 

259 
Pringle, Rebecca, 286 
Pringle, Robert, 265 
Pringle, Susan, 240, 265, 286 
Pringle, Wm. B., 240, 260, 266-267 
Pringle, Mrs. Wm. B., 288 
Pringle, Mr. and Mrs. Wm. B., 286, 

287, 289, 297 
Pseudonyms of D. G. M.: "Caius," 166; 

"Don," 173, 396; "Ik Marvel," 166- 

167; "John Timon," 210; "Jno. 

Crowquill," 382,406; " Abijah Wilker- 

son," 403-404; "Mr. Quigley," 401; 

"Mr. Sharply," 401 
Pusey, Cecile, 205 
Putnam's Magazine, 207 

Raymond, Henry J., 177, 211 
Reade, Charles, Griffith Gaunt, 303 
Reese, Mary Dews, 339 
Rembrandt, 14 
Republic, 179 



419 



INDEX 



Richmond, Legh, Dairyman's Daughter, 

120 
Rockwell, John A., 165 
Rogers, Samuel, 38 
Ruskin, John, Time and Tide, 350 
Ryerson, Edward L., 339, 351, 359 
Ryerson, Mary Mitchell (daughter D. 

G. M.), IS, 334, 339, 351, 379, 409 
Ryerson children, 344, 346 

St. Gaudens, Augustus, D. G. M.'s com- 
ment on his Diana, 361-362 

Salmagundi, 209 

Saltonstall, Sir Richard, 14, 15 

Sargent, John O., 179, 206 

Savage, , 29 

Scott, Sir Walter, 59, 94, 115, 332 

Scribner, Charles (founder publishing 
house), 177, 210, 220, 225, 255 

Scribner, Charles (son of founder), 333, 

379, 387 
Scribner' s Magazine, 313, 407 
Scribner's Sons, Charles, 386-387 
Seaman, Henry J., 165 
Shakespeare, 107, 205, 218, 235, 306, 348 
Silliman, Benjamin, 45, 48 
Silliman, Benjamin, Jr., 169 
Sisson, Mr. and Mrs. Allan, 227 
Smith, Joseph Few, 184 
Smith, Senator, 66 
Sophocles, Electra quoted, 361 
Southern Literary Messenger, 114, 224, 

398, 399 
Spectator (Addison's), 209 
Sprague, Rev. W. B., Annals American 

Pulpit quoted, 21 
Springfield Republican, 211 
Stanley, Anthony D., 49 
Stevenson, Robert Louis, 100 
Stiles, Ezra, 71 

Stoeckle (Stakkel), Baron, 166 
Stout, Sir Robert, on Reveries and Dream 

Life, 235 _ 
Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 369 
Sun (Baltimore), 311 
Swinburne, A. C, Atalanta in Calydon 

quoted, 373 



Taft, Alphonso, 40 
Taft, Wm. Howard, 40 



Taylor, Bayard, 369; Views A-foot, 87 
Taylor, Henry Charles, 2 
Taylor, Zachary, 179, 201 
Tennyson, Alfred, 24, 357 
Testa, Chevalier, 166, 167, 170 
Thompson, G. Albert, portrait of D. G. 

M., 3S9-36o, 409 
Thursby, Emma, 357 
Tilden, Samuel J., 181, 21 1 
Tribune (New York), 207, 218, 382, 405- 

406 
Trumbull, Jonathan, 72 
Tyler, Gen. Daniel, 295 
Tyler, John, 91, 98 

Ulrich, Miss, boarding-house of, 165 
Union, 167, 170 

Van Buren, Martin, 201 

Vesuvius, D. G. M.'s ascent of, 139-140 

Virgil, 79, 84 

Vitruvius, 81 

Waldo, Samuel, 22 

Walton, Izaak, 167, 205, 237 

Ware, James, De Scriptoribus Hibernia, 

13 

Ware, Sir James, 13 

Warren, Dr. Samuel, 58-59 

Washington, George, 18, 98 

Waterman, J. W., quoted, 56 

Way, Arthur S., translation of Virgil's 

Georgic quoted, 84 
Wayland's Political Economy, 48 
Webb, Col., editor Courier and Enquirer, 

169 
Webster, Daniel, 3, 148, 169 
Webster, Mrs. Daniel, 169 
Webster's Primary Speller, 317, 372 
Weir, John F., 409 
Westminster Catechism, 27, 37 
White, Joel W., consul to Liverpool, 84, 

85, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 97, 

98, 107, 112 
White, Richard Grant, 215 
Whittier, John G., 32; letter to D. G. 

M., 305-306 
"Wilkerson, Abijah," Journal of, 403- 

404 
Williams, Gen. Wm. (guardian D. G. 



420 



INDEX 



M.), 52, 59-64, 84-85, 87, 88-89, 91- 
93, 94-95, 96-99, 102-103, 106, 111- 
112, 114, 115-117, 128, 129, 137, 138, 
144-145, 146, 149-150, 159-160, 161, 
162, 182, 186, 200 
Willis, Nathaniel P., 71, 169, 212, 215, 

369 
Wilson, John (Christopher North), 55 
Winslow, Eleanor, 409 
Winter, Wm., 7, 369; characterizes D. 

G. M., 8-9 
Woodbridge, Rev. Ephraim, 19 
Woodbridge, Rev. John, 13 
Woodbridge, Lucretia (mother D. G. 

M.), 19, 21-24, rf,tf, 51 
Woodbridge, Nathaniel Shaw, 13, 75 
Woodbridge, Sara Parker, 13 
Woodbridge Hall, Yale University, D. 

G. M.'s dedicatory address, 379-381 



Woodbridge's Geography, 38 
Woods, Leonard, 169 
Woolsey, Theodore D., 49, 53, 72 
Wordsworth, Wm., 55, 117, 118-119 
Wright, Wm., 166 

Yale (College, University), 7, 16, 17, 18, 
28, 41, 42-73, 123, 177, 227, 274, 275, 
309, 313, 3i6, 319, 357, 376, 379-381, 
408 

Yale Literary Magazine, 56-64; D. G. 
M.'s contributions to, 395 

Yarnall, Thomas C, 57, 375 

Youth's Companion, D. G. M.'s "Look- 
ing Back at Boyhood," 35-41 

Zola, Emile, La Joie de Fivre, 374 



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